Pokemon Max Revive: The Journey Begins
by GaliCat
Summary: AU. Ash Ketchum, Kanto's resident klutz, dreams of becoming a Pokemon Master like his father. But is he ready to take on the responsibilities of raising an animal more dangerous than a tank? And will he ever get the chance to actually GET a Pokemon? At the rate he's going, he might not even keep his hamster; but with Rocket-Dan on the rise, Kanto will need every trainer it can get.
1. I Wanna Be The Very Best

**A/N:**

**Okay, okay, so Episode 001: The Origins Of Love, isn't technically over yet at the time of this writing (July 17, 2012, for those of you keeping track). But we know how it ends, right? The adventure will just be in how we get there. Besides, I've been itching to write some Ashy-boy into the story, so I wrote ahead into this one. Yep, I'm the type of gal who has to have at least SIX projects going on at once to be happy because I have the attention span of a Zigzagoon that's just drunk six cans of Red Bull. **

**As an update to what you can expect from me in the near future, I actually have the seventh chapter of The Origins of Love written up, but I need to sit on it for a few days to perfect it. I'm also working on a long-awaited seventeenth chapter to Tarnished HeartGold and SEVERAL requested Worldhopper's Pokedex articles (Mew, ghost-types, Aron, and possibly one other one), as well as my Sonic the Hedgehog fangame project and an original franchise plan with some big ideas going into it, so don't be surprised if it all goes at a slower pace than you'd like. (Tragically, while I've already agreed to an epilogue to Jessie's Christmas Carol, I'm at a brain-block as to how to actually implement it. Pray for me on this, please!)**

**Without further ado...**

Pokemon Max Revive Episode 002: The Journey Begins

Chapter 1: I Wanna Be The Very Best

"A-a-a-a-ash! Wake up...!"

Ash Ketchum drowsily bolted out of bed, a paradoxical action that resulted in him lying sprawled face-down on the floor. His mother, sighing, helped her son back to his feet, just as she had been doing every day for the past several years. Ever since Ash had gratuated from crib to bed, the exact same thing had happened every single morning.

Every. Single. Morning.

"I'm up, Mom, I'm up," Ash reassured, wiping the sleep from his eyes. "What time is it?"

"Time for you to start actually using that alarm clock your father sent you," Mrs. Ketchum scolded. "One of these days I'm going to sleep in and you'll miss the school bus."

"That would be fun," grinned Ash. "Then I could stay home all day and train Raticate."

His mother, Delia Ketchum, rolled her eyes. Ash's "Raticate" wasn't even a Pokemon – it was a hamster that his parents had given him to help train ASH to take care of other living creatures. "Raticate" was supposedly practice for when Ash actually became old enough to train actual Pokemon, but secretly, Delia had hoped that Ash would decide that caring for a creature was too much trouble and forget the whole thing.

He hadn't. The fact that "Raticate" had a transparent red-and-white hamster ball and could bite sticks in half on command severely disturbed Delia Ketchum, who hadn't wanted her only son to become a Pokemon trainer at all. Her husband had already left home as a trainer; she didn't want to lose Ash as well. But Ash had cut his teeth on Pokemon (not literally, thank goodness); he'd grown up alongside his mother's Mime Jr., which was now a fully evolved Mr. Mime that did most of the chores that Ash was too busy training "Raticate" to pay attention to. Mimey, as he was affectionately called, often retaliated by "innocently" washing Ash as if he was a piece of furniture. This was about the only way to convince Ash Ketchum that it was in his best interests to actually take a bath.

Delia sighed. "I made pancakes for breakfast, Ash..."

Suddenly much more wide-awake, Ash gave a happy yelp of anticipation and raced down to fill his stomach at high speed, leaving his bewildered mother sitting in his room with no other companionship but a hamster in a cage full of variously sized and heavily gnawed plastic poke-dolls. The cage wasn't the only thing plastered with Pokemon memorabilia, either – the entire room, from top to bottom, was practically a shrine to gym battles, powerful Pokemon, and champions of the past and present. To say Delia was a little overwhelmed would have been an understatement – and that itself was an understatement of an understatement.

"They grow up so fast..." his mother sighed.

* * *

_Pokemon! I CHOOSE YOU!_

_Through fire and water and forest and grass_

_Through earth and through sky and wherever I pass_

_The journey is hard and the road is unclear_

_But this is why I'm here..._

_Pokemon!_

_Leaving home with a friend by my side_

_It's Pikachu and me_

_We'll rack up wins, we'll make some friends_

_We'll find our destiny_

_Always and forever I'll do my best_

_Can I complete this? That's my test_

_Forever and always I'll stay true_

_As long as I'm here with you (Pikachu!)_

_Through fire and water and forest and grass_

_Through earth and through sky and – through that girl's DRESS? ("Eek!")_

_The trail is hard and the way is unclear_

_But I know you're always near..._

_Pokemon!_

_I go to sleep, battles fill my head_

_It all comes back to me_

_The fires that burned, the winds that blew_

_To shape my destiny_

_Perhaps my foes will change someday_

_My friends will all stay true_

_I'll be a Master anyway_

_As long as I'm here with you (Pikachu!)_

_Always and forever I'll do my best_

_Can I complete this? That's my test_

_Like a Cherrim bud that will someday bloom_

_When a Sunny Day shines through..._

"_PIKACHU! I CHOOSE YOU!"_

_POKEMON!_


	2. As Thick As Theives

Chapter 2: As Thick As Thieves?

**Pewter City, early that morning (before sunrise)**

"Are you ready, James?"

"As ready as I'll ever be, Jess-"

"Good. Let's go."

"-and by that, I mean I'll NEVER be read-"

Too late. Jessica Musashi, Rocket-Dan agent, dragged her hapless partner James Kojiro into a dark alleyway close by the Pewter Museum of Science. (Technically James was supposed to be the one in charge, but Jessie had always considered herself a liberated woman. JAMES, on the other hand, did not feel liberated at all.)

"All right, Meowster should be in place to steal that fossil right about now. All he needs is a distraction for the guards." Jessie gave James a devious grin. "Which means I need a big, scary man to attack me so I can scream loud enough to scare the guards into trying to rescue me."

James shuddered, running his fingers through his straight chin-length lavender-blue hair. "If a big, scary man comes by, I'LL be the one screaming the loudest!"

Jessie nearly choked. "Don't you get it? YOU'RE the big scary man, James. So act like it. NOW," she demanded, putting her hands on her hips and leaning forward as if she was about to whirl her head around and stab her partner with her oversized, hot pink, and ridiculously starched hairdo.

James had never expected this. "Hold on, wait. You're ASKING me to attack you?"

She grinned. "Do your worst. You could never hurt me anywa-"

Two year's worth of James' frustration at being the punching bag of the team manifested itself in a sock to Jessie's jaw that surprised even himself. He also hurt his hand on Jessie's jawbone (no wonder it was so strong, she used it so often), and once Jessie had enough of her sense back to remember which direction the punch had come from, she promptly hurt the rest of him. As such, it was actually JAMES' wailing that attracted the single human security guard.

"What's going on here?" the guard asked; he was either slightly tanned or of mixed ethnic descent, had spiky brown hair with a twinge of red, was somewhat thin but firmly built, and couldn't have been any older than fifteen, although Jessie and James were seventeen and sixteen, respectively. However, the boy guard was made considerably more impressive by the six Geodude circling him, arms linked as if in a sort of planetary ring. "Break it up, you two!"

"He started it!" Jessie yelled, pointing at a fallen James with one hand and indicating her growing jaw bruise with the other. "He was trying to kidnap me!"

"Who'd want to kidnap YOU, I'd like to know?" James snapped back, obviously the worse for the wear and determined to keep using his "bad guy" act as a means to tell his abusive partner exactly what HE thought of her domineering. "If you had a family, I'd pay THEM a ransom just to get RID of you!"

Oops.

That snapped it. Nobody talked trash about Jessie's family, or her lack thereof, without losing something, like hair, blood, or even certain organs. With a wild roar, Jessie promptly forgot whose side she was on and leaped forward in a thoroughly misguided attempt to snap James' neck.

She never reached him, at least not then. At a shouted command from the young guard, one of his rocklike Geodude launched itself at Jessie and tackled her with enough restrained force to crack a few joints without breaking a few bones as well. Holding Jessie's arms to her sides with its own well-muscled arms, the Geodude pulled her back, preventing her from hurting her rather beleaguered "attacker" any more than she already had. Jessie was otherwise uninjured; obviously these Geodude were very well trained to detain and restrain without maiming, she thought.

She frowned to herself; maiming didn't exactly rhyme with the other words. Then she mentally berated herself for wasting time thinking of witty comments about this wretched situation and not getting herself out of it. Unfortunately, any use of her "special skills" would draw much more attention to her than she needed at that time, and none of it would be positive. So she said several things out loud that didn't exactly rhyme either, but were rather insulting remarks concerning James and his ancestry, none of which would look at all nice in print.

"Are you all right?" asked the guard, offering his hand to help James up. "What's with that woman, anyway?"

James was quite glad to play up his victimhood; he'd been known as "the bad guy" for far too long and figured he could use a little sympathy. "Oh, it's terrible! She's been stalking me for two years now," he overacted, taking the guard's hand. (Jessie was now restrained by three Geodude at once – one holding her arms, one holding her legs, and another one holding its hands over her wildly cursing mouth.) "Every time I mess up at the smallest thing, she's on my case, and usually on my back as well. If I were you, I'd lock her up immediately. And be sure to vaccinate her; she's probably got rabies."

Jessie glared evil daggers at her treacherous partner, vowing to herself that once she broke free of whatever prison she got thrown into, he'd be first on her list of targets for violent evisceration. (That list grew longer every day, and James' position on it fluctuated wildly depending on her mood.)

The security guard reached for a walkie-talkie in his pocket. "Seymour," he spoke into it, "I need you to rally the backup security guards to help watch the museum with Four, Five, and Six. Me and my other Geodude have a situation here with a madwoman."

James listened closely to the slightly staticky reply: "A madwoman, huh? That's hardly a first for you. What'd you say to turn off this one?"

"She was beating up a guy her age in an alleyway. He says she's been stalking him. I swear to Mew I didn't talk to her before then!" (Laughter came from the other end of the walkie-talkie.) "This isn't another one of your jokes, is it, Seymour?"

"Nope, nothing, no joke. Just surprised that you finally found a girl you DIDN'T fall head over heels for, Brock."

"Well, she knocked this guy-" The guard turned to James. "What's your name, anyway?" James told him. "-she knocked this James guy nearly unconscious. I think she was going to strangle him or something. She's obviously unstable; I can't imagine why this guy hasn't called the Jennys on her yet. Said she's been chasing him for two yea-"

"Don't move a muscle!"

The voice was James'. The blue-haired teen had hooked one of his arms around the young security guard's neck and was rather shakily holding something with a very sharp point to the guard's back. "Believe me when I say that I do NOT want to have to use this." He sounded like he meant it, too; bloodshed was the last thing this particular Rocket-Dan agent wanted, but there was the small fact that the guard still had three Geodude active and that an (admittedly wimpy-looking) human in round glasses, presumably Seymour by the fact that he was holding a walkie-talkie that matched the security guard's, had just burst through the front door of the museum and was looking frantic enough to do something entirely unexpected for someone of his body weight.

Unfortunately for James, those three remaining Geodude had plenty of body weight, and they weren't about to let some strange guy threaten their trainer with a cooking knife. James promptly fell flat on the ground with two Geodude – Four and Five – sitting on either end on him and giving him the Mean Look of his lifetime.

The worst part, in James' opinion, was that Jessie saw the whole thing. "Oh, NICE GOING, Jame-SON!" she yelled (one of her Geodude captors had released her mouth in order to see to the James situation). "Why don't you go ahead and blab to them that we're out to steal that rare fossil while you're at it, you blundering-"

Then she realized what she was saying. Unfortunately for her, so did everyone else.

Brock might have been young, but he could obviously think fast; shouting for his remaining Geodude (both Six and the one that had previously been guarding Jessie's mouth, which was apparently named Two), he dashed past Seymour into the museum while yelling, "Whoever's in there, put your hands up! We've got two of your friends here, and – WHOA!"

The young guard was knocked straight into Seymour as a cream-colored streak flashed past his legs, tripping him. The streak froze for a second, revealing itself to be some sort of cream-and-brown Pokemon in a gas mask, running on its hind legs, and holding some sort of rock in its hands. Seeing Jessie and James restrained by two Geodude each caused the Pokemon to falter, making it easy pickings for Six to grab at (Two was distracted with untangling Seymour from its trainer). Six promptly smashed the mask into oblivion, revealing the creature to be a thoroughly terrified Meowth that was gibbering in a language that sounded suspiciously like it was supposed to be English spoken at high speeds by a Hollywood resident about to wet himself in fright.

Jessie cursed loudly; this wasn't supposed to happen! Blast those addle-brained partners of hers! But it wasn't over yet.

It was far from over.

Jessie was just about to unleash her "special skills" which always seemed to just cause even more trouble and trauma, but then the cavalry arrived in the form of a thick cloud of poisonous smog that engulfed the feuding figures, causing plenty of coughing. Actually, it had been caused by a Koffing itself. James' Koffing, to be precise.

While the Geodude were naturally resistant to poison gas, the humans were not, and soon all six Geodude had retreated, carrying Seymour and Brock into the museum and barring the door behind them. Since the other humans and the Meowth were sure to be affected by the dangerous gas as well, the Geodude figured that there was no need to hurry to retrieve the fossil; only a Poison-type Pokemon, or one with Immunity, could possibly snatch that fossil now. While the Geodude were no more bloodthirsty than James was, they were far less sentimental; what mattered first was the safety of their human allies, not the fate of the beings who had previously been threatening Brock with a kitchen knife.

Still, one of the Geodude (actually, her own name was One, or Geo One, to be more precise) felt the need to investigate which rock the Meowth had been holding before the poison cloud came (most likely it was the rare fossil that the bad human girl had mentioned), so after making sure that Seymour and Brock were stable (which took fifteen minutes and a bit of trial and error activating the air purification system), she slipped out the side door with Three to see what had happened to the other humans and their Meowth.

They had expected to see dispensing smoke and three poisoned bodies, unconscious or worse. Instead, they found nothing but a lingering bad smell and a poster nailed to the door that read:

_To protect the world from devastation!_

_To unite all peoples within our nation!_

_To denounce the evils of truth and love!_

_To extend our reach to the stars above!_

_Jessie Musashi!_

_James Kojiro!_

_We're blasting off at the speed of light;_

_Surrender now or prepare to fight!_

_(hastily scrawled) Meowth, that's right!_

For the life of them, nobody was ever able to figure out how or when the villains had found the time during their escape to nail that poster to the door.


	3. Can't Even Catch a Bus

**A/N: Sorry if this is a little wonky; I had trouble with the lines dividing the sections. Assuming they even show up at all, that is. I really, really have to start proofreading my stories for format AFTER I post them.**

**Anyway, this chapter is my way of showing that, remake or no, Ash still starts out as a clueless dork. Don't worry; unlike in the anime, he'll actually MATURE as he gains Gym Badges.**

Part 3: Can't Even Catch a Bus

"You're LATE, Ash Ketchum. Care to tell me the reason?"

Ash blushed as he slid into his desk at Viridian City's Pokemon Academy. His teacher, Caitlyn Vernaz, was looking down her spectacles at him with a confused expression. Confused, but not unkind; her curtness was only from the fact that the front of Ash's shirt looked as if he had had a swift run-in with the hood of a freshly painted red convertible, which was exactly what had happened.

"Sorry, Ms. Vernaz," Ash spluttered. "I was having breakfast when the bus came, it left without me, I tried to catch up with it, but it was too fast, so I turned around, and WHAM! You'll never believe this, but I ran into my best friend Gary and his new car. Literally."

Ash neglected to mention that the car had been stopped at a stoplight, causing many of his classmates to wonder how, with all the red all over him, Ash was strong enough to remain standing. For perhaps the first time in the entire school year, almost the entire class was impressed with Ash, which was a miracle in itself.

But one student was not impressed. "I don't KNOW you, Casey-boy!" yelled a voice among the rows of desks. Gary's voice.

"Sure you do!" Ash cheerfully corrected, waving to Gary with a paint-smeared arm. "I'm Ash Ketchum, not Casey-boy! I'm your best friend, remember? I mean, you picked me up for a ride, didn't you?"

Gary Oak, grandson of Professor Samuel Oak and both self-proclaimed and unanimously determined coolest kid in school, glared evil daggers at Ash Ketchum, who just so happened to be the unanimously determined biggest LOSER in school. "Well, excuse me for getting your name wrong, STRANGER. Like I SAID, I don't –"

"Oh, by the way, I just remembered, I accidentally left my bookbag in your car. You brought it in with you, right?"

Growling mild expletives to himself, Gary quickly excused himself from the room to get Ash's bag. Ash, totally clueless as to the reason for Gary's odd behavior, tagged along, much to Gary's despair.

"Leave me alone, Casey-boy," Gary muttered as he stalked down the academy hallway. "You're such a suck-up, and you're the dumbest kid in the world. You just want one of my grandfather's Pokemon, don't you? Well, you're going to have to get up on TIME to get one. Which you won't."

Ash rolled his eyes. Gary had really been crabby lately, but Ash was sure it was just a phase. They were still friends, right? Sure, there'd been that one argument over the Poke-ball they'd found while fishing… the Poke-ball that they had accidentally broken in half… but Gary was just in a bad mood today, right? He'd been in that mood for the past three months, so Ash figured he was bound to get over it soon.

"Like I said, I'm still Ash, and I always have been. Casey is my MIDDLE name. You're not mad because I ruined the paint on your car, are you?" He didn't wait for an answer, or even notice that Gary's eyes were rolling while he growled under his breath. "Oh, wait, it's not really YOUR car, right? It's your sister's." Ash got a dreamy look in his eyes. "Daisy Mae… so beautiful… I-I mean her car. It's so beautiful."

Gary wished Ash would go jump off a cliff. The way he saw it, that loser would be doing everyone a big favor and save Gary himself the trouble of pushing him.

"All right, ASHY-boy. Here's social status 101. I'm cool. You're not. Get over it. My GRANDFATHER is giving the Pokemon LECTURE today, because he's cool and you're not. He's a friggin' PROFESSOR. It's not like YOUR father's the Viridian City gym leader or anything. In fact, I heard that he took off on his Pokemon journey just to be rid of YOU."

If Gary had hoped for a rise out of Ash, he was sorely disappointed. Ash merely shrugged, taking the statement to be merely a repeated comment and not Gary's personal opinion. "You can't believe everything you hear. Where'd you hear it from, anyway? One of your grandfather's lectures?"

Gary, as a matter of fact, had made that bit of false information up all by himself, and was for once speechless. Exiting the academy building for its parking lot, he slammed the door in Ash's face.

Ash was momentarily knocked backwards, which wouldn't have been so bad except that he landed flat on his back, got spotted by an overly excitable janitor who saw the red paint all over him, and wound up landing himself in the school nurse's office until lunchtime, despite his continuing insistence that he was perfectly fine.

In other words, it was a just another typical school morning for Ash Ketchum – that is, an awkward one.

* * *

Ash missed the lecture, of course. He also got in trouble for breaking dress code restrictions on the liberal application of makeup (how humiliating) and for getting car paint all over the nurse's office. By the time he sat down to eat his bought cafeteria lunch that looked and tasted like overcooked Muk (his lunch box had been in his bookbag, which Gary still hadn't returned), he was beginning to feel like the car had run him over.

This feeling promptly evaporated when half his class crowded around his table to talk to him, which hadn't exactly been a common occurrence ever since Gary Oak turned nasty.

For some reason, Ash had won at least the temporary respect of most of his peers, probably for surviving an imagined 60 MPH impact with the Oak convertible and still being able to walk into the classroom like nothing whatsoever was wrong. And thanks to Gary's obviously antisocial behavior towards Ash, the rumor mill actually had it on "good authority" that Gary had ordered the driver to run Ash over.

That was a ridiculous idea, since Gary's older sister Daisy Mae had been the one driving (and she was anything but the type to commit homicide), but the Cherrim vine insisted that, yes, Gary Oak had attempted to get Ash Ketchum run over, perhaps even during a Grand Theft Auto spree (as ten-year-olds clearly weren't allowed to drive cars, although they were, oddly enough, allowed to command firebreathing dragons to fly them from one end of the region to the other). The fact that this perceived attempted homicide had clearly failed miserably meant that only the most juvenile delinquent of the students (or the just plain cruel) still thought Gary was cooler than Ash.

(Gary didn't understand this at all. According to the rumor mill, he'd hijacked a friggin' CONVERTIBLE, which HAD to gain him fame points, right? RIGHT? Except that Ash was hastily reassuring his new fans otherwise, and there was no way on Pokearth that Gary was going to perjure himself into claiming to have committed two felonies in a row when a teacher might overhear. Zero tolerance and all that. Which was idiotic, seeing as the entire purpose of the school was to teach the ins and outs of Pokemon battling, which some considered to be felony-worthy in itself. Not that what was going on in Unova involving those Plasma goons was of any concern to Gary.)

Ash had freely admitted that the car wasn't moving when he'd run into it; he was way too honest to lie about that. But most of the kids just thought that Ash was in shock. In a world full of dangerous creatures that children must capture and tame as a rite of passage, sturdiness of body, mind, and spirit were all necessary for survival. They were also extremely impressive for a kid who hadn't even trained anything more dangerous than a hamster.

"You should get your own Pokemon tomorrow!" said a kid named Todd. "Professor Oak's just received three starters to give out, and he's handing them out to early comers!"

"Well, that rules CASEY-BOY out," Gary remarked snidely (and loudly) from a table across a room. "Catch Pokemon? He can't even catch the BUS!"

"And YOU didn't catch his NAME," added Todd curtly. "He's ASH."

"Oh, he's going to be ash all right, if he even thinks he can be a Pokemon trainer," Gary sneered. "He won't last five seconds out there if he keeps running into traffic like that. Can you imagine him up against an angry Tauros? Or maybe a herd of, say, THIRTY or so? He'd be cow chow!"

That snapped it. Ash abruptly left his table to have a word with Gary, and that word was "angry." Before long, Ash wasn't the only kid in the cafeteria that was covered in red car paint.

In fairness to Gary, most of that car paint had happened to rub off while Gary was giving Ash ten times as good as he got. And by the time the cafeteria workers (one of which was actually Daisy Mae herself) pried the two boys apart, it was hard to tell which red splotches on Ash Ketchum were paint and which ones were ketchup from the hamburger sandwich that Gary had attempted to suffocate him with.

Once again, it was a typical day for Ash Ketchum.


	4. Primo Donno

**UPDATE: A new sentence clause has been added to the first paragraph to explain a detail that a guest named E kindly pointed out to me in a review. I'm sorry that I wasn't able to PM him/her for a clearer explanation, but this will have to do.**

**A/N: Yes, Mew, I kept the motto (with slight context alterations). You just can't improve on a classic like that. However, the "song" at the end of Chapter One is actually a paraphrase of Bulbapedia's English translation of the original Japanese Pokemon theme (dress and all, although originally it was a skirt. Dress rhymed better.)**

**I think I've finally got a bead on why James does what he does. I've also realized that as much as I've intended to make this series a more "believable" version of the Pokemon mythos, I just can't write "realistic." I HAVE to write "over-the-top." It's in my blood. I'm a drama queen; that's why I love Team Rocket so darn much. (I actually dated James in my dreams for several weeks, but we broke up because he wouldn't quit his job, which obviously involves being mean to Pokemon. Boy, did I chew him out over that one. It's kind of disturbing, actually, that this sticks in my mind. You guys won't tell any of my potential employers, right?)**

**Since I've never been to public school, I have no idea whatsoever of how inter-student politics work, so I just have to go by what I've heard in various school stories. As a woman with Asperger's Syndrome, I'm not the best psychologist around, so bear with me, okay? The closest thing I come to human interaction is usually having religious arguments with my mom's friends/relatives on Facebook, and that usually turns somewhat ugly. (You don't need to know, and I'm sure not telling.)**

Part 4: Primo Donno

Ash Ketchum and Gary Oak were SUPPOSED to have a talk with the principal of the Pokemon Academy that day, but he was strangely unavailable. The principal's secretary (who also happened to be an ace trainer named Salma) had thought it prudent not to mention to the children that the principal was actually passed out drunk in front of the road to Route Two after drinking what he'd BELIEVED was his usual double shot of expresso, _and no one had bothered to move him because they'd all assumed he was somebody else's problem._ Actually, Salma herself suspected that one or more of the students were been responsible for spiking the principal's coffee (he wasn't very popular amongst the student body; he was known to be quite a grump when he hadn't had his coffee yet, and the coffee machine at the school was said to be as old as Mew and had to be tinkered with twice a week), but she couldn't prove anything because Gary had clearly been too busy prying Ash off the hood of his convertible.

And she knew for certain that Ash was neither mean enough to pull a horrible prank like that, not smart enough to pull it off without hurting himself in the process. Eventually, she knew, he'd get curious as to what the spiked coffee tasted like, and that would end with an incriminating intoxification. In fact, even now Ash was busily emptying the dish of complementary chocolate poffins that the secretary had on her desk, much to Gary's amusement.

If any of them had known what was actually happening to the principal at that moment, they might not have been so amused. Or maybe they would, but not in a good way. More in a "it's-funny-because-it's-happening-to-someone-I-hate" kind of way.

Route Two, you see, was the route leading to Pewter City. And it, as well as Viridian Forest, stood between three certain Rocket-Dan agents and the drop point for the Mew fossil they had recently "acquired."

Things were about to get very interesting. In a bad way.

* * *

"That's DISGUSTING," James sneered when he saw the living road obstacle. "Falling asleep in the middle of the road like a Snorlax on Sleep Powder. Who is this guy, anyway?"

The team's Meowth, nicknamed Meowthster, rifled through the drunken man's wallet. "Looks loik da head geeza o' Pokemon Academy, judgin' from his ID card here." He shook his head, making his ears and whiskers waggle. "Ain't whad I'd call a good 'xample fo' da kiddies."

"As opposed to US?" Jessie asked sarcastically.

"Pokemon Academy? Do you know what this means?" James had something in his eye, and if Jessie didn't know better, she'd swear it was an evil glint. "Those were our sworn rivals back at Pokemon Tech!"

Much to Jessie and Meowthster's embarrassment, James actually started pumping his arms like a cheerleader to imaginary music. "T, E, C, H-"

"You mean the Pokemon Tech that awarded us the lowest scores in the school's history?" Jessie said sarcastically, grabbing James by the arm and holding him firmly.

"-Who do we appreciate? GOOOOOOOO TECH!" James cheered. Unable to stop his momentum, he slipped and fell, soon finding himself sprawled on the pavement with Jessie still holding his right arm.

Jessie growled to herself. James could be such a CHILD sometimes! "I can't believe you're reciting the worst school cheer in history. It doesn't even rhyme!"

"It does too! ...Sort of! Anyway, **I** wrote it!"

Meowthster saw the seeds of yet another senseless and idiotic fight brewing between the duo, so he reclaimed the conversation. "Anyway, whad Oi wuz sayin' is dat we gots ta ged dis guy oudda da road b'fore school lets out. B'sides, he's blockin' our way t' d' boss."

The principal opened his eyes, looked up, and drunkenly muttered that he wasn't moving until he got his shot of double expresso.

"Um... right!" James said, trying to humor him while he _carefully_ extracted Jessie's fist from around his own arm. (She didn't seem to mind.) "We'll take you the coffee shop, our treat! Right this way... um, sir." he said, offering his hand to help the old man up (the man accepted). In truth, James didn't exactly feel comfortable around someone who clearly wasn't in his right mind and could potentially turn violent at any moment without warning, but heck with it, he put up with that from Jessie every day. At least the pair were still in their civilian disguises, so they wouldn't be suspected of kidnapping...

And then James got a horrible idea. A terrible, horrible idea. And the worst part was, he liked it.

Jessie seemed to get the idea as well, judging from the conniving look in her eyes, and as she ran to help James carry the poor man into town, she winked slyly at him to show that she was in on the plan. Grasping the principal by his other arm, she heaved him to his feet, blushing as the old man teetered on unsteady feet and practically fell right on top of her. It didn't help matters when the principal opened his eyes, saw Jessie, and made a rather loud comment that made Jessie blush and James infuriated. Or perhaps it was the other way around. At any rate, everyone agreed it bore no repeating, except maybe as evidence in a court of law on harassment charges.

"You'd better be thinking what I THINK you're thinking," Jessie whispered to James as they started walking into town, "or I swear to Mew that I'm going to tell this guy you're my sister."

James turned his face away so Jessie couldn't see his expression, which was several shades of disgusted at once. "I'm THINKING this guy needs to learn a lesson," he whispered back, "and while he may be the principal of our rival school, experience is still the best teacher." (James was also thinking that Jessie needed a few lessons herself, but he wasn't about to give them. He already knew she could best him in a fight – fair or otherwise; not that he'd know about the _fair_ part of it – and while he was still technically the designated leader of the trio, that didn't mean he was in charge. Not in any sense of the word whatsoever.)

"Ah, I get it. Should we hold him for ransom, or just bring him in to the boss as a human test subject?"

James winced, remembering the "initiation process" for entering Rocket-Dan, as an employee or otherwise. Everyone who joined Rocket-Dan was immediately subjected to a certain "introduction seminar" that was always held in a operating room and required a month of recovery afterward. Side effects included nausea, vomiting, and the complete rewriting of a substantial portion of the inductee's DNA code.

It wasn't something James liked to think about.

"Howse about both?" Meowthster quietly chimed in, snapping James back to reality. "Bedda yet, have 'em leave d' money roight outside yoir ol' schoolhouse an' send Tessy 'n Mondo t' pick it up! Youse can blame it on a juvvie prank, keep the money AND d' geeza, den turn 'im in t' d' boss an' ged ourselves dat pr'moition we've been workin' for!"

James laughed weakly. "You know, given the situation, he'd make a good Snorlax morph, don't you think? I hope THAT teaches those kids a lesson." He tried to act like he didn't care about the unnerving process that awaited their captive, a process he'd gone through himself – and it wasn't fun to recover from, assuming you survived it. James still hadn't gotten used to seeing himself shoot vines out of his wrists.

"I hope it teaches HIM a lesson!" Jessie snapped, loud enough that their potential victim could hear it quite clearly. Unfortunately, by now they were far enough into Viridian City that everyone in the general area could hear it quite clearly, including the principal's adult grandson.

The principal's adult grandson, who just so happened to be a flashy television personality by name of Primo Donno – and, in Jessie's opinion, a total hunk. While James didn't know of the relation between Primo and the drunk old man, he could quite clearly see in Jessie's eyes that she had noticed Primo and was imagining a swift, permanent change of plans alongside the lines of "get discovered by Primo, get on TV as a hero, get famous, and live happily ever after, quite possibly married to Primo himself, at least for a while until I fight with him, make news headlines, divorce him, and take half his stuff."

James did NOT like that idea. Not one little bit. Never mind that he was admittedly a tad bit jealous (Uxie knew why), but through the poster James had stuck to the door of the Pewter Museum with Jessie's nail gun (without her permission, I might add), he'd essentially announced to the entire city of Pewter that Jessie Musashi and James Kojiro were the newest and biggest bad-Absol in town. If you'll pardon my language.

But Primo was striding right up to the trio, and Jessie had that "superstardom, here I come!" look in her eyes, which were shining as fierce and conceited as they ever had, which was quite a lot. James had heard it from her about a billion times: Fame! Fortune! She wanted it all! From humble (and greatly questionable) beginnings come super stardom!

And James was willing to bet that Jessie had forgotten all about their recent heist, which they'd literally signed their own names to. At least James had. Had he even remembered to tell Jessie he'd MADE the poster? They'd been kind of busy setting up the heist... it had been the usual pre-mission jitters, which were absolutely nothing compared to what James was feeling right at that exact moment when Jessie caught Primo Donno's eye.

"Hel-LO, Primo!" she sang. "Oh, aren't YOU a sight for sore eyes! Finally, a friendly face! You WILL help me, won't you?" (She didn't wait for an answer.) "My arms are killing me, holding up this poor intoxicated homeless man I just rescued off the streets!" And not a single word about James, who was standing right next to her, holding the principal's other arm and feeling like the third wheel. (Of course, Jessie knew the principal wasn't homeless at all – but Primo didn't know that she knew. Her favorite hobby was stretching the truth in her favor, preferably on live television.)

Primo was taken aback, so much so that he actually forgot to be dramatic. "Um, lady? First of all, you're on live camera, welcome to Poke Dude's Show Me Show; second, that guy actually looks more like he's-" And then he realized who the "homeless man" was. "Oh, snap. – Get him off-camera, will you?" he whispered to James, who soon found himself entirely responsible for the drunken victim as Jessie, hamming it up for the camera, took center stage alongside her idol Primo Donno, ready to hog the spotlight as usual.

"Well! Well done, young lady!" Primo spoke up, back in his flashy personality mode and personally grateful that his grandfather was no longer in danger of being trampled on. "As I always say, a good deed a day brings happiness to stay! Might I have your name?"

Words cannot describe the horror James felt as Jessie not only gave her full name, but broke out into a highly self-glamorizing work of fiction describing the pitiful condition she'd found the old man in, none of which bears any repeating here. Primo was clearly trying to keep a straight "eager and cheerful live TV personality on Prozac" face while continually casting concerned glances at his grandfather, whom James was awkwardly attempting to keep in an upward position without the drugged man doing anything embarrassing. (The gathering crowd was much more entertained by James' predicament than by Jessie's monologue, especially as the Meowth that was trying to help James kept saying funny things in English – A Meowth! Speaking English! – and was actually having a much more entertaining conversation with Primo's grandfather than Primo was "having" with Jessie. Unfortunately, most of it was completely unprintable.)

And just when things couldn't get any more ludicrous (Jessie was actually _flirting_ with Primo, who didn't seem very impressed; he probably got that sort of thing from women every day), a squad of Officer Jennys from Pewter City showed up on their motorcycles, and James suddenly realized that he and Jessie really ought to have changed disguises before appearing on live television.

Oops.

It was time for drastic measures.

* * *

Since the principal was currently indisposed, Salma sent Gary and Ash back to the classroom for their Pokemon History class – after, of course, giving them an after-school detention and what she THOUGHT was a very stern lecture, which prompted blushing from Ash and eye-rolling from Gary. They were halfway through the lesson by then, leading to some embarrassment when Ms. Vernaz, who'd had her back turned when Ash and Gary walked in, chose Ash to give a summary of what she'd taught so far.

Actually, the only embarrassment was of the students that HAD been through the entire lesson from the beginning and were SUPPOSED to have been paying attention, because Ash, strangely enough, already knew every word of it.

"Right! I remember this one. About five hundred years ago -"

"Four hundred fifty-six, Casey-boy!" Gary rudely interrupted.

"Gary Oak!" snapped Ms. Vernaz. "Don't interrupt!"

Ash continued on in stride, determined not to lose his temper again. "_Four_ _hundred_ _and_ _fifty-six_ years ago, in the days before the regions got together, a bunch of regional warlords were calling the shots in each kingdom, using people and Pokemon to battle other warlords and take over their land – only THOSE battles were battles to the death." Ash shuddered at the thought of it. "Eventually, four of the REALLY nasty warlords realized that the only way they could get rid of the other guys without getting killed was to help each other take over and all rule the world together, though they didn't WANT to share ruling the world, but they did anyway, and they got control of the whole region as the Four Heavenly Kings and made everybody else's lives miserable until the Champion came and kicked their royal butts!"

"Ooooooh," the rest of the class went, as if on cue. Everyone but Gary, who could see his status as "coolest kid in school" potentially slipping again (even though he'd beaten Ash up armed with only a hamburger sandwich in the most vicious two-man food fight known to Pokearth). After all, he himself knew where this story was going, and he knew Ash would know as well. After all, Ash himself was named after the kriffin' _Champion_ who'd defeated the Four Heavenly Kings, even though that Champion had incidentally happened to have been a girl.

Ms. Vernaz smiled softly. She could be stern or kind by turns, depending on her mood. "And who was that Champion?"

"ASHRED THE DRAGONTAMER!" Ash yelled, jumping on top of his desk and posing dramatically on top of his desk for about three milliseconds before the entire desk collapsed in on him (it had been taking abuse from its owner for most of the school year) and he landed in an uncomfortable heap of splintered wood and metal framework. The class's ooohs quickly turned into gasps, and then, to Ash's embarrassment, cruel laughter. Ash turned about as red as his full first name and gingerly checked himself for broken bones.

Ms. Vernaz groaned to herself. "Ash Ketchum, what have I told you about standing on your desk? Do you want ANOTHER trip to the school nurse's office?"

"Actually, yes," Ash replied sheepishly. "I think I have a splinter down my pants." It took him a while to pick himself up, and Ms. Vernaz had to help him. "Um, maybe several, really. But can I finish my story first?" he pleaded.

"Ash Ketchum. Ash CASEY Ketchum, if I remember right." Ms. Vernaz was no longer smiling. "If you're QUITE sure you can handle it without breaking anything..."

"Hey, I've been hit by a car this morning, and I'm still ticking," Ash bragged, not realizing that his teacher was referring to the furniture and not to him. "Ashred was amazing! She was one of those kids from Pallet Town that got kidnapped by that evil Gengar and Meloetta – you know that story, right? The Pied Piper of Pallet Town? – and she'd led those kids' rebellion alongside the Charmarauders to break all of them out of the Ghost World. She was the greatest Pokemon trainer there ever was!" Ash was swept up in his own momentum. "And THEN she and her Charizard took on the Four Heavenly Kings and liberated the entire empire!"

"And got herself KILLED!" Gary added a little too loudly. "Remind you of anyone, Casey-boy?"

"That's enough, Gary Oak!" Ms. Vernaz snapped, fixing the Professor's grandson with a deadly stare. Lowering her voice, she continued, "Perhaps you'd like to stay after school and learn some MANNERS from your GRANDFATHER. And once the principal comes back, he'll probably-"

The principal's secretary suddenly rushed into the classroom. "Nobody leave the building! We've got a situation outside with a pair of Grass-type gijinka, and they're holding Primo and the principal hostage!"

Ms. Vernaz groaned to herself. "Salma, if this is just another student prank, I'm not in the mood to-"

"It isn't. And if you'll excuse me, I need to do my duty to protect this city!" Salma rushed out in a hurry; secretary she might have been, but she was also a Pokemon trainer, and it was every good Pokemon trainer's job to protect the region from evildoers.

Which was why Ashred Casey Ketchum came rushing out after her, armed with nothing whatsoever but the pet hamster he'd smuggled into class.

**A/N: Drama! XD **

**I'm considering opening up guest stars for kids in Ash's school, but first I'd have to know if people were actually INTERESTED in guest starring – and even then, you wouldn't be guaranteed to make it in.**


	5. Hamster Lance

**And now for a note from the author: if any of you get confused about where I get my ideas, some of them are ideas combined from a mix of several different official Pokemon continuities, some come from deduction, and others are just me being creative. The presence of Poke-morphs (gijinka) in this story as agents of Rocket-Dan are an example of me both deducting (genetic experimentation at Team Rocket, such as the creation of Mewtwo) and being creative (what if all canon Rockets were actually Pokemorphs?). And, of course, there's the fact that the Pokemon ReBurst manga shows humans and Pokemon fusing, which gives more of a canonical excuse for me to run wild. I'll also be giving my own take on subjects such as Nuzlocke players in-canon (please don't take offense if you're a Nuzlocke player; this is just a fan fiction).**

**Oh, and I just found out that in anime canon, Ash's mother isn't supposed to have her Mr. Mime until the episode "It's Mr. Mime Time!" – alternately spelled as "It's Mr. Mimie Time!" in the English title card, though Mime is pronounced correctly when the card is read. Amazing what Bulbapedia can teach you. However, since I've already introduced Mimey, he's staying. He might be important in this chapter – then again, he might not. Not giving spoilers. Let's just say that things escalate to a point that not even I predicted. I'm going to have a time writing myself out of this one. Good thing I already have a plan as to how!**

Part 5: Hamster Lance

"Mom! Mom! You'll NEVER guess what happened today!"

Delia rolled her eyes as her son Ash came rushing into the kitchen, home from school. How was she going to tell him that he'd left the door unlatched on his hamster cage and "Raticate" had escaped? "You're right, Ash. I'll never guess. You'll just have to tell me," she teased, although she only planned to half-listen, as she still had to decide how to break the news to him that his hamster had run away. Besides, so long as Ash didn't come in with an escort of school officials or Officer Jennys (which happened more often than you might think), things couldn't be THAT serious.

"Mom, you'll never believe this, but me and Raticate helped the Jennys capture a real live Grass-type gijinka!"

Ash was right about one thing; his mother didn't believe it.

"That's nice, dea -" It hit her, at least the believable part of it anyway. "Wait a minute. You mean you brought your hamster to school?"

Never mind the fact that gijinka – Pokemorphs – weren't even supposed to EXIST.

Ash couldn't believe how dense his mother was. "Well, DUH. How was I supposed to sic Raticate on the gijinka if he was still in his cage stuffing his cheeks with vitamins or training on his wheel? All this time I've spent raising him to be the very best hamster Pokemon has finally paid off!"

Ash brought out a Poke-ball – an ACTUAL Poke-ball, not the usual transparent-red-and-white hamster ball he normally used – and pressed the button. A bright flash of light shone from it, materializing onto the kitchen table into the boy's hamster, which had clearly been through a traumatic situation. Its fur was all mussed up with grass stains and missing patches, and the look in its eyes told Delia that this was one terrified rodent. At least that's what she thought in the single moment she looked at them; one half-second later, Ratty rushed clear off the table, into Delia's lap, down her leg, and halfway across the kitchen, vanishing under the refrigerator.

"I guess he needs some alone time," Ash admitted. "Good thing we keep losing food down there, huh? At least he won't get hungry."

Delia stared in genuine horror at her son, who was clearly unaware of the severity of what he'd done. "Ash Casey Ketchum, exactly WHAT did you DO to that hamster?"

"It's not what **I** did; I just gave him the orders, like a good trainer!" Ash replied proudly. "You see, the gijinka had captured the principal by using sleep powder or something like that -"

"Ash Casey Ketchum! First of all, what makes you so sure it was a gijinka in the first place? You know we haven't been able to buy you those glasses that Nurse Joy recommended – what if your 'grass gijinka' was just a woman with green hair in a green dress?"

Ash rolled his eyes. "Mom, really, I'm not THAT stupid. She had HUGE flowers on her wrists, she shot seeds from her hands, and she was COMPLETELY GREEN, skin and all! Except her hair wasn't green; it was bright pink and was the longest I'd ever seen – it stood up behind her like the trail from a ROCKET!" Ash posed dramatically, as if about to throw Ratty's now-empty Poke-ball. "And then she was about to kidnap some other guy, looked like Primo to me, couldn't tell from that distance, so I rushed in – the grown-ups tried to stop me; they didn't think I was ready – but I hurled my Poke-ball at her, and you'll never believe what Raticate did!"

Delia couldn't believe what ASH had done. She didn't believe half his story either; Ash tended to exaggerate his (numerous) misadventures. "Exactly WHAT did you make 'Raticate' do to that poor woman?"

"He ran straight down her blouse and used the Bite attack, just like I taught him!"

Wrong on SO many levels.

Delia Ketchum did not get mad easily, but this time, she did. "ASH CASEY KETCHUM! Do you mean to tell me that you sent YOUR HAMSTER down a lady's SHIRT and made it BITE HER?!"

"I'm afraid that's the case, ma'am," said an adult voice that was definitely not Ash's. "And quite frankly, I'm not sure whether we should give him a medal of valor or a solid thrashing."

And that was when Delia Ketchum realized that during the time her attention had been fully focused on Ash, two Officer Jennys, a camerawoman, and an official-looking man with bright red hair that stuck up straight had indeed marched into the kitchen and were looking at her. Especially the man, who was dressed in a fancy navy blue military-style uniform with a big black cape that had red velvet lining. He flashed his badge case at her – all Pokemon trainers were required by law to have one, whether or not they had actually earned gym badges yet, as the case also held its trainer's ID card in the back. And this particular ID card was golden in color and embossed with raised letters and the design of the Rising Badge of Blackthorn City. The letters on it read "Dragon Master Lance."

"I'm Lancelot L. Blackthorn, government agent, Dragon Master, and leader of the Elite Four," the man said. "You can call me Lance. Unfortunately, every word your son – Ash, was that his name? – told you was true. We actually had _three_ gijinka causing trouble today – first at Pewter City's museum where they stole an extremely rare Mew fossil which we've yet to recover, then in Viridian where they drugged and attempted to kidnap the principal of Pokemon Academy. Fortunately, or perhaps UNfortunately, we caught word via Professor Oak that these criminals were at large, so the Jennys knew their identities – at least, they THOUGHT they knew."

"This is a scan of the paper the criminals left behind at the Pewter museum, sent via Professor Oak from his former assistant, Seymour, who does research for the museum," said one of the Jennys, using her Pokedex to project the image of James' poster. "The two Roserade gijinka – or, rather, Pokemorphs-" (she glanced at Mr. Blackthorn for a brief moment, then returned her gaze to Delia) "-apparently go by the identities of Jessie Musashi and James Kojiro, two former students of Pokemon Technical, the Academy's rival school. Presumably, this was to disguise the principal's kidnapping as a student prank."

Delia tried to remember what a Roserade looked like.

"They COULDN'T have been the ones who drugged the principal," the second Jenny broke in. "We picked up reports of him blocking the road before then. We tried to move him, but he... got feisty on us." She blushed deep crimson.

Ash kept trying to interrupt the conversation to give HIS side of the story, but was promptly shushed by Lance, who could give the mother of all stern looks. "We don't know for sure that these two gijinka AREN'T Jessica and Jameson, genetically altered," Lance added forcefully. "They're currently at the police station being questioned. The third gijinka was a creature that looked exactly like a Meowth, but spoke and behaved like a human. IT escaped, but after we caught the woman, the male Roserade surrendered. As you're aware, genetic experimentation on humans and on Pokemon is highly illegal in the United Regions, but we have every reason to believe that these three are in fact the results of such actions. In addition, they have identified themselves as part of the Rocket-Dan organization, a criminal league we'd thought was disbanded long ago."

"We don't know for CERTAIN that they were really from Rocket-Dan, any more than we know for sure that they were the actual Jessie and James," interjected the first Jenny. "The police labs are doing genetic testing, but it's equally possible that they were altered clones – or imitations spawned by the gijinka themselves. After all, the two Roserade were able to disguise themselves very convincingly as normal human beings in the Pewter and Viridian cities."

"They only changed forms when we arrived and blew their cover," explained the second Jenny. "But we're fairly certain they're the ones that stole the Mew fossil, as their half-poison typing would explain how they were able to resist the poison gas that their Koffing spread outside the Pewter museum to hasten their escape."

The camerawoman retained her silence, panning her shots from face to face. Ash, having failed his constant attempts to join the conversation, started photobombing.

"Besides being dangerous half-Roserade gijinka, the male had a knife and the female a nail gun," said the first Jenny. "The Meowth gijinka was weaponless, but fought with teeth and claws. Some of us-" she glanced at the second Jenny "-believe it may have been an actual, natural-hatched Meowth with artificially heightened intelligence."

"Legends HAVE been told of Pokemon learning to speak human languages," the second Jenny interrupted. "It's equally possible that-"

"ENOUGH!" shouted Lance, spreading his arms out wide. His voice was slightly angry, but mostly just firm and stern. "The important thing for this woman to know is that her son – he IS your son, right?" Lance asked Delia.

Shocked by this turn of events, Ash's mother could only nod her head yes. "Just know that your SON has broken Kanto law on three counts," said Lance: "one, he has imprisoned a base animal in a Poke-ball; two, he has taught said base animal to fight like a Pokemon; and three, he has openly ordered said base animal to attack a Pokemon, or at least a half-Pokemon, half-human creature. Unfortunately, the law is the law, and I'm afraid we're going to have to confiscate your son's animal and rehabilitate it."

"WHAT?!" Ash yelled in horror, slamming his hands down on the table and actually succeeding in getting the complete uncontested attention of everyone in the room. "But I helped you guys catch that evil gijinka woman and everything!"

"That you did, but-" said one of the Jennys, but Lance interrupted her.

"But nonetheless, under Kanto law, your son is guilty of three counts of animal abuse, thus requiring us to confiscate his, um, hamster, you called it?" For the first time, Lance looked unsure of himself. "Where IS that creature, anyway?"

"Like I'm gonna tell you, you... you... PETNAPPERS!" Ash blurted, all his hair standing on end with fury. "You're just as bad as Rocket-Dan!"

Lance's face turned the exact shade of red as his own vibrant hair, but he didn't dare say a word. There were two Jennys present, and anything he said could well be used against him in a court of law. Besides, for once in his life, he found that there was nothing whatsoever he could think of to say.

"The rodent ran under the refrigerator," Delia sighed, "and I can't say that I blame it. Good luck getting it out." Then she turned to Ash. "Are you CRAZY? Trying to fight a dangerous... _mythological_ _creature_ with your pet HAMSTER? Don't you know it could've been KILLED? What if the gijinka had attacked YOU next? What were you even doing out there anyway, in the middle of a police battle?!"

"Gee, THANKS, guys!" Ash screamed, much louder than he'd intended (and he'd intended to scream it very loud indeed). "I save the town from wild, grossly mutated creatures that stepped clear out of a monster movie, and THIS is the thanks I get?! You can't take away Raticate! I won't LET you!"

Fortunately, before Ash could add physically assaulting a government officer to his list of crimes committed that day, Mimey, reading his intentions, psychically grabbed him from behind and held him tightly in a hastily constructed Trick Room, which thankfully held fast even with the young boy thrashed wildly in his invisible cage and yelling insulting threats of retaliation. Mr. Blackthorn rolled his eyes, bent down low to the refridgerator, and started searching for the wayward hamster. "Aha!" he said, swiftly grabbing the rodent with his other hand as it tried to make a breakout.

Ash wasn't taking THAT lying down. "Raticate, use Bite!"

To the hamster's credit, it remained obedient to its trainer and promptly relieved Lancelot L. Blackthorn of a small chunk of his finger. Screaming a word quite unfitting of a member of the Elite Four, Lance dropped the hamster, which scurried away up Ash's pant leg and into his shirt pocket, where it curled up and growled in a slightly adorable but still truly menacing way. Not that anyone besides Ash himself could hear it.

Though still held in Mimey's telekinetic grip, Ash protectively reached his hand over the opening of his pocket (he wasn't dumb enough to actually reach INTO the pocket). "You can't have Raticate! He belongs with me, can't you see? He ran to ME for protection against YOU! And if you DARE try to lay a HAND on him, I'll – I'll – I'll FIGHT you for him!"

Lancelot L. Blackthorn, government agent, Dragon Master, and leader of the Elite Four, was absolutely flummoxed at this nine-year-old runt's audacity. One of the Jennys looked almost as if she were about to draw her tazer, but she didn't need to; the telekinesis held fast.

"YOU, young man," Lance said, bringing himself to Ash's eye level, "are in BIG trouble." He reached through the invisible barrier to make a grab for the hamster in question (apparently, the psychic barrier was one-way only) –

– and Ash bit Lance's hand so hard, he tasted blood.

That evening, a video of the entire incident was all over the news in every city in the region, and Ash was forced to impatiently watch it over and over again from the television at the police station while handcuffed to an Officer Jenny that was still filling out all twelve pages of his juvenile delinquency charge paperwork.

**A/N: Okaaaaay... I honestly didn't see THIS plot twist coming. Poor Ash just might not get to go on his Pokemon journey after all! Or will he? It's going to take a little divine intervention to get the Chosen One on the right track... and I know just where it's coming from. But YOU don't! Mua ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! So, writhe in suspense and agony, like Ash is writhing inside Mimey's Trick Room!**


	6. Good Cops, Bad Cops

Chapter Six: Good Cops, Bad Cops

James' walk to the Viridian City police station was miserable. Flanked by the Jennys and their multiple Growlithe, he could almost feel the hot stares of the Growlithe, the Jennys, and just about everyone else in the city, whether they were people or Pokemon. It was as if a teenage werewolf had been discovered in an Earth Prime metropolis and was being paraded through the streets by a police escort, and it had attracted about the same amount of attention. James almost wished that the Jennys had caught _him_ in a Poke-ball as well rather than him having to face this much humiliation.

Sure, he could always change his "forme" back to purely human (it was part of the preprogrammed Pokemorph package; the scientists at Rocket-Dan were at least smart enough to know that, no matter how hard you try, _someone_ is bound to notice if a random passerby has roses growing out of their wrists), but the trained police Growlithe might take the first throes of transformation as a prelude to an attack, and a single Ember from their throats (or several at once) would easily be enough to ignite James' leafy body into a world of pain.

Being half-human and half-Pokemon meant having the comparative strengths and weaknesses of each; no Pokemorph was quite as durable or powerful as the Pokemon they were modeled after. Sure, humans on Pokearth could build up quite astounding damage resistance from eating certain types of berries; James himself often ate foods containing berries that counteracted a grass/poison type's weaknesses. And there was always the obvious Rocket solution to everything: using genetic manipulation to nearly eliminate type weaknesses in their subjects. Unfortunately, said scientists were still limited by the finite capabilities of the genetic code itself, and quite frankly, James didn't even trust his altered body to be capable of the athletic feats he'd impressed all the girls with in Pokemon Tech's gym class. Even after two years of being half Roserade.

Roserade. James despised Roserade. Vicious murderers, that's what they were. He'd almost picked a wild one to give to his then-girlfriend Jessiebell, mistaking it for a bunch of wild roses, and it had nearly Poison Jabbed him to death for his trouble. He'd had to be hospitalized after that BEAST had drained most of his life energy; he was only still alive because his faithful Growlithe, Growlie, had had the advantage of breathing fire, which (had he already mentioned to himself?) Roserade were weak against.

If Growlie could see him now, James thought, he wouldn't know if James was friend or foe. And THAT was truly a scary thought.

Quite frankly, James was surprised (more so than he should have been, under the circumstances) to learn that the Jennys kept a full collection of Poke-proof, species-tailored straightjackets on hand in case of any eventualities, and that one of the jackets just so happened to fit him almost precisely and was thorn-proofed to boot. Unfortunately, despite his own surrender, James was still unable to convince them that he could put it on by himself – either they still didn't trust him (which was likely), or they didn't think he was capable of dressing himself (considering that no one but a true contortionist can button their own straightjacket while wearing it, this was far more likely). Being dressed by the Jennys was excruciatingly embarrassing for all involved, since James couldn't control his morphing ability when he was overly flustered, and he wasn't at all comfortable with close feminine body contact (just ask Jessie on that one – she loved to torment him with it). It didn't improve matters that the Jennys took his constantly growing thorns as a threat and retaliated with force, via Growlithe breath.

Not fun. Not fun at all

* * *

Jessie, for her part, was completely unaware of _her_ surroundings. Trapped within her Poke-ball's suspended animation, she was oblivious to the actions of Lance, the Poke-ball's holder. As such, when she was finally freed from her prison, she had no idea of where she was or what had happened, and given the circumstances of her capture, she wasn't even aware that she no longer had a small animal running around under her clothes.

As such, her behavior was quite embarrassing to watch.

"If you're quite finished making an idiot of yourself with your little tantrum," a male voice said behind her after she'd been thrashing around screaming for five minutes, "we have business to attend to. Who are you, WHAT are you, and why are you here?"

Jessie froze, sobering. Looking around at her new surroundings, she instantly realized that she could not honestly answer the man's final question, as she had absolutely no idea of where she even was. It wasn't Viridian City, that was for sure; it was cold hard rocky ground on some Mew-forsaken beach in the middle of nowhere. She had the open ocean in front of her, a bare, rocky volcano behind her – a volcano with SPIKES, enormous curved spikes, in a circle close to its base, rising toward the sky as if the volcano was an entire mountain range in itself – and on either side of her were more Dragonite than she'd ever cared to imagine even existed.

Dragonite were considered a purely mythical species in the United Regions, a fairy tale Pokemon living on some uncharted island in the middle of the ocean, rescuing drowning people and guiding wayward ships to shore. Jessie, however, was now completely convinced that Dragonite were no myth at all, because there were a half-dozen of the enormous creatures staring at her as if they were trying to decide if she was friend, foe, or food. And given that she currently looked like a floral arrangement, it wouldn't help matters any even if these particular Pokemon were vegetarian.

Jessie swiftly concluded that she must be dreaming, so she did what she usually did when she had a bad dream – scream herself awake. Not very dignified, but usually super effective. Except in this case, it wasn't a dream, and the only result of the scream was that all six Dragonite screamed back at her, covering her in hot, humid, smoking dragon breath that not only clung to her clothes, but smelled every bit as atrocious as you'd naturally expect a dragon's breath to smell, especially after eating fish all its life and only brushing its teeth with the occasional fallen pine tree.

Of course, suffering six dragon roars at once also wreaked havoc on her eardrums. Jessie, to nobody's surprise, fainted dead away, which was the exact opposite of the effect that she had hoped to achieve in the first place.

Grumbling to himself, the man returned Jessie to her Poke-ball with the press of a button, absorbing her back into the empty sphere in a flash of reddish light. Then, turning towards a rocky mountain trail leading towards the volcano, he set off with a purposeful stride, his cape flowing behind him in the island winds.

The Dragonite followed, strangely in awe of the human figure: Lance Blackthorn, the Dragon Master.

* * *

"We would appreciate your full co-operation. Everything will be confidential, of course."

Those were the two sentences that no Rocket-Dan member ever wanted to live to hear, and James was not at all surprised that he was hearing them. The Jennys had managed to, with the aid of a trained Butterfree's String Shot, finally adhere James to a secured piece of furniture, which unfortunately happened to be an electric chair. (James had gotten just a little bit misdirected during his escape attempt, and he was certainly regretting it.)

"Please tell me this thing has a safety switch," James stammered, shaking in his string shot. "I don't want to be electrocuted!"

Jenny #3 ( a different Jenny than the two that had showed up at the Pallet residence) rolled her eyes, then tossed the chair's only electrical power plug into James' lap. "Does that satisfy you?"

James stared at the plug in a mixture of apprehension and relief, trying to trace its cord from the plug to the chair. Finally satisfied that he wasn't about to be fried to a crisp, he turned his attention to Jennys #3 and #4.

"Look, I honestly can't tell you anything. First of all, I don't even KNOW anything about Rocket-Dan's plans. I just run errands and recruit test subjects and stuff like that. I don't know where everything goes to or what it's used for."

"He's a horrible liar," Jenny #3 whispered to Jenny #4.

"Please don't interrupt, Janette," Jenny #4 whispered back. "Let him finish. He's the one we're listening to."

James was oblivious to this, so he kept talking. "Second, even if I DID know anything, I'd face a death much worse than this sorry excuse for a piece of office furniture if I even came CLOSE to telling anyone our secrets. If I had a death wish, I'd have just asked you to plug this thing in and flip the switch on me."

"And if you had a self-preservation instinct," Jenny #4 spoke up, a little too primly for James' comfort, "you wouldn't have surrendered so easily. What's your game there?"

James broke into a cold sweat. After a long pause, he blandly replied, "I... I-I-I don't want to talk about it. Let's leave it at that, shall we?" He was one syllable away from mentioning something about the weather when Jenny #4 moved in closer, fixing him with her stare.

"You say you can't tell us anything, yet you've willingly entered a position in which our questioning you is inevitable. Even if you refuse to talk, you know perfectly well that our psychic-types can easily scan your mind for all information – especially as you're partly a poison-type, which is extra-susceptible to psychic energy. So why did you surrender after your partner was captured? I've noticed that your other partner, the Meowth morph, made its own escape quite easily."

"Meowthster's not a morph. He's a talking Pokemon that happens to walk on his hind legs."

"You're dodging the question, Kojiro. And might I remind you that the electrical plug is only a few feet away?"

_Gulp_. James knew he'd talked himself into a corner. There was only one thing to do, and that was to tell the truth, which was no doubt what the Jennys had already figured out from his behavior. "Okay, okay, okay! Don't fry me! I'll tell you, I'll tell you! It's about..."

He paused, trying to get his nerve up. Whether or not he was sitting in an electric chair in front of two Jennys didn't matter on THIS subject; he'd always viewed it as life-and-death subject matter anyway, given his partner's volatile temper. But if he was going to be of any use whatsoever, he'd just have to admit his feelings – to total strangers who were on the opposite side of the law from him and currently had him locked up tighter than a Cloyster's backside.

"It's about Jessie."

* * *

Jessie herself was soon yanked back out of her Poke-ball in the middle of the strangest sight she'd ever seen: a council of Dragonite, deep within a stony cave illuminated only by boiling lava. Only four other humans (if Jessie could honestly count herself as still human, which, like most things she wanted to do, she did anyway whether it was honest or not) stood amongst the mythical creatures: an old woman in a dress and apron, leaning forcefully upon a wooden cane; a red-haired young woman in glasses that radiated confidence (Jessie took an instant dislike to her); a tough-looking, longhaired muscle man in torn-up khaki pants, thick black arm cuffs,and no shirt whatsoever; and a man with spiky red hair, a snappy military-style uniform, a totally sweet cape, and a loud voice that sounded disturbingly familiar.

"-THIS is what Rocket-Dan has been doing!" Lance shouted, gesturing dramatically at Jessie. Clearly he'd been going on at his dramatic speech for quite some time before Jessie's release. As it was, Jessie was far too exhausted to contribute to the conversation, although her short rest in the Poke-ball had partially restored her energy. Poke-balls were designed to do that; even the artificially-built ones that weren't made from actual apricorns were infused with the aura-strengthening pheromones found in the shells of the Johto-grown fruit, which not only increased their occupants' strength over a period of time, but also induced feelings of calmness and friendliness to the occupants.

Usually.

"WHAT THE FRELL DO YOU MEAN, **THIS** IS WHAT ROCKET-DAN HAS BEEN DOING?"

Evidently, the _calming_ part hadn't exactly worked.

"Stop gawking at me!" Jessie ordered the Dragonite and humans gathered around her. "I am NOT a sideshow attraction! I'm a human being, and a greatly improved one, I should have you know!" She quickly stood up and crossed her arms in front of her, the petals on her wrist roses fluffed out to look as large and threatening as possible. (If you can imagine thinking of a bouquet of roses as threatening, which they actually are on Pokearth when attached to the thorny arms of a Roserade. Watchers from Earth Prime would probably find the scene ridiculous, at least until the blue arm jabbed them in the gut and injected highly toxic, life-threatening poison sap. In that case, they probably wouldn't have much time left to consider if Jessie's blossoms looked threatening or not, because the living aura would be drained out of them like a chocolate milkshake through a bendy straw, and the victim would decompose into fertilizer on the very spot. As much fun as it was, Jessie preferred to save that treatment to those she felt REALLY had it coming to them. After all, you couldn't turn a pile of ashes into a Pokemorph, although Rocket-Dan had certainly tried. Thirteen times.)

Lance didn't seem intimidated at all by Jessie, though. "Human? IMPROVED? Those words hardly belong together. Who are you and how many innocent Roserade died to make you look like a freak?"

"If there was ever an innocent Roserade, I've yet to meet one," Jessie snapped. "As for your question, I'm Jessie Musashi, legendary Ninja Princess, and if you call me a 'freak' one more time, I'll have to prove it to you the old-fashioned way!"

The cavern shook with the laughter of Dragonite. Lance and his human cronies were laughing as well. "Okay, then, Ninja Princess. You still didn't answer my second question. Do you not know the answer, or do you simply not care? And here's another question for you: how exactly do you intend to 'prove' your title to us?"

The older woman laughed cruelly. "Forget the pleasantries, Lance. Let's just watch her try to 'prove it' and see what happens." She focused on Jessie. "I hereby challenge you to a Pokemon battle. With one catch: you're the Pokemon."

If Jessie hadn't already been in a hot sweat from the heat of the lava, she'd have broken into a cold one.

* * *

"Jessie?" asked Jenny #4. "You mean your partner?"

"Who else would I mean? Just – just promise me she's safe, that she'll stay safe, and I promise I'll tell you whatever I know. It won't be much, but if it's enough to bail her out of trouble..."

James didn't dare finish the sentence, but he thought to himself, If it's enough to bail her out of trouble, it will be worth my dying for.

James cared about Jessie. He couldn't bring himself, even in his most secret thoughts, to use the word _love_ anymore, not since one particular incident involving Jessie throwing his sleeping bag in the river while he was still in it, but blast it, he couldn't get her out of his mind. Maybe loving her was for the best, at least for her sake; after all, Jessie had next to no one to take care of her other than her teammates, and James had always known it. And since Meowthster seemed to only be concerned about his own mangy Meowth hide, James felt a strangely moral obligation to always stick by Jessie through thick and thin, even when doing so infringed on his ability to fulfill any moral obligation he had to anyone else.

Heck with it, life was so DIFFICULT. But it beat the alternative, which he was currently staring in the face.

The Jennys were quiet a few moments, waiting for James to finish. When it became increasingly evident that he wasn't going to, Jenny #4 spoke up.

"So if we promise to protect your partner, you'll tell us everything?"

"That's what I just SAID!"

Jenny #3 – Janette – interrupted, "But we don't KNOW what happened to her, not since Lance-"

"We'll do anything we can," #4 insisted, raising a hand to silence Janette. "You have our word." (Jenny #3 pouted at this, clearly neither trusting nor agreeing to Jenny #4's deal.)

James himself was suspicious, so he decided to invoke one extra precaution. "Pinky swear?"

The sheer look on Jenny #4's face was enough to send Janette into a series of very unprofessional giggles. "Um.. uh.. sir..." #4 stammered, completely unsure of the proper protocol for a situation like this. Janette, seeing an opening, took an entirely different approach, interjecting, "Just what do you think we are, sir, five years old?

James blushed deep crimson beneath his Roserade leaf-mask. "M-my apologies, ladies. I just thought..."

"You thought we would cut you loose from your bonds," Jenny #4 said with regained composure, "just so we could link our fingers with those of a criminal who can inject poisonous sap with his own nails? Exactly how stupid do you think we are?"

Stupid enough to have to think about it first, James thought. But he was already risking his neck as it was, and with Jessie on the line as well, he couldn't afford to push things. "Just swear to me, then. I don't trust policewomen."

"If you don't trust the word of an officer," Jenny #3 remarked dryly, "then how do you know Jasmine here will be any more honest if she swears it?"

Jasmine (Jenny #4) turned beet red. "Janette! What on Pokearth was THAT for?"

"Interrogation purposes," Janette replied cooly. "If he doesn't trust us, he won't talk. You can't write a check if you're bankrupt. So I _strongly_ suggest you put your money where your quite articulate mouth is, metaphorically speaking."

"HA!" James blurted, feeling he'd won a victory. "Two against one! I win!"

Jasmine glared daggers at the both of them, muttered under her breath about working with idiots, then solemnly pinky swore to the suspect that she would see to it that the Jennys of Viridian City would do whatever was in their power to ensure that Jessie's life would be spared. She made a mental note to bring this little incident up with the higher-ups when Janette's annual performance review came due.

Janette was disappointed that the incident had to remain confidential. She'd have truly loved to put the entire incident on MewTube.

* * *

"All right, Grandma," Jessie shot back with mostly false bravado. "If that's the way you want to fight, then we'll have no Pokemon at ALL in this battle. You want me to fight on my own? YOU fight me on YOUR own!"

Jessie had figured there wasn't a snowball's chance in the molten lava surrounding them that the old lady would accept this horribly one-sided challenge. Much to her surprise, she actually did.

Also to Jessie's surprise, she did so immediately, without a single word of warning – and the one-sided challenge turned out to be exactly the opposite of what Jessie had expected. Jessie was suddenly knocked flat onto the hot stony floor, now staring into a fiery pair of vengeful eyes that could not possibly have been entirely human. The older woman's grip was surprisingly strong, and before Jessie could protest, she heard and felt two rigid, uncanningly cold metal cuffs clink tightly around her wrists, far too close to the skin for comfort – she could practically _hear_ the frostbite setting in. The irony of the cuffs' subzero temperature against the searing heat of the volcano's interior was far from lost on Jessie, and she wondered for a moment if this woman just might be an incarnated False One. It only lasted a moment, though – after that, she was absolutely sure of it.

"Oh, I wouldn't waste my Pokemon on a weak sproutling like you!" the woman hissed, revealing a set of hideously yellowed Razor Fangs set into her mouth to serve as her false teeth. How disgusting. Jessie wondered what had happened to the creatures that had previously worn those teeth in their mouths, and she was certain that whatever it was, they hadn't died of natural causes.

Jessie flinched. The Dragonite around her appeared to be CHEERING the old woman, and it sounded as if at least two of the other humans were clapping and cheering; she couldn't look around in her situation. "Hold your TONGUE, you old hag!" Jessie yelled, unable to do anything but curse. The cuffs seemed to emanate a dark, paralyzing power that held Jessie to the floor – either that, or that demon woman had broken her back. She hadn't broken her nerve, though."Or, rather, BITE your tongue and hold your BREATH. Maybe you wouldn't have to HAVE false teeth in the FIRST place if you BRUSHED them once in a while!" (This last statement was sadly accurate; there were clear, semi-permanent coffee stains at and around the dentures' roots, and they smelled like they'd been there since Mew first roamed Pokearth.)

The old woman laughed. "Nice to meet you too, Jessie Musashi," she said mockingly, clearly not any more inclined to be nicer to Jessie than Jessie was inclined to be nicer to her. "I'm Agatha Juzi of PURE: the Pokemon United Regions Elite. You'd probably know me better as the oldest member of the Elite Four ever on record, and one of the toughest as well. And YOU, young lady, are going to be our eyes and ears into your murderous little organization, willingly or otherwise."

Agatha laughed cruelly. "Not that I think you're going to give us all that much trouble. After all, you won't even remember any of this ever happened."

And that was when the cuffs' energy intensified to the point of white-hot pain, and Jessie completely blacked out.

* * *

A/N: as you can see, I'm borrowing bits from the Pokemon Adventures manga, but how much, I'm not at liberty to say. This plot twist with Jessie has been festering in my mind ever since I found out the Elite Four are villains in the Adventures manga; surely Rocket-Dan and the Four were bound to clash at some point anyway. And then there's James; how will he (inevitably) escape the clutches of the long arm of the law? And will he be forced to share a cell with the same twerp who sent a hamster down Jessie's shirt? (Holy Mew, NO! I want them BOTH to survive, dangit!) And most importantly of all: how will Ash get to be a Pokemon trainer in the first place?

Well, he's gonna have help. Let's just leave it at that and wait for the next chapter. God bless you all!


	7. Never Alone

**Okay, so I did something in this chapter that I said in last chapter's endnotes that I wouldn't do. Give me a break! I'm looking for great material, and this idea was just too ludicrous to ignore! However, I have to add just one thing to this: THIS IS NOT SLASH. I don't write slash. (If you don't know what "slash" means, you don't need to bother about it here. It has NOTHING to do with this story.)**

Chapter Seven: Never Alone

Once the Jennys got him into his holding cell, James figured he could finally be miserable in peace. But as soon as he sat down on the single cot with a lumpy-looking Mareep-wool electric blanket in the practically bare cell, he found he was sorely mistaken.

He also found himself walloped by a hysterical, grief-stricken nine-year-old that had been hiding under the blanket James had just sat on.

"Watch it, you worm!" James shrieked, trying to sound tough and masculine while covering his injuries and shaking in a way that was not very tough and masculine at all. He wondered if the Jennys were getting a prison outfit for him, and if they would bring it in soon; he probably needed to change his pants.

The twerp – Ash Ketchum – rubbed his eyes and stared at James distantly. "Um... d-do I know you? Haven't we met earlier today or s-something?"

Yeah, James thought, way to state the obvious. "I don't think so. I'm..." He racked his brains for a name. "Seymour! That's my name. Seymour Brock. And you are...?"

"Ashred K-Ketchum," the kid replied blankly, obviously suffering from some sort of mental trauma completely unrelated to being sat on. His eyes were red and puffy from crying, but that couldn't hide the odd lightning-shaped markings under them – was it James's imagination, or did that kid have SCARS? "J-Just call me Ash. Almost everyone I know does, although a lot of them have trouble p-pronouncing it."

James may have been largely naïve for a member of Rocket-Dan, but even he could figure that they weren't mispronunciations, considering that this was the type of kid to send a hamster down a young woman's shirt. "I'd stick with Ashred if I were you," he added, backing farther away from Ash's field of vision, hoping not to be recognized. He was glad he'd changed from morph forme to human forme before accidentally sitting on the poor kid; apparently this Ashred Ketchum hadn't noticed when he'd nearly changed back to morph form in shock at the blanket smacking him in the face and in other less mentionable places.

Perhaps those markings really were scars. Perhaps Ash's face had suffered some wound in the past, leaving his vision impaired for life. But why wouldn't he seek medical attention? Was it something the Nurse Joys couldn't heal?

Ash made a face at James, snapping him back to the present. "Ashred? B-But that's a _girl's_ name!"

"Red, then. Much harder to mispronounce. That -SH- is a killer for kids your age." Stay friendly, James thought to himself. Remember, you won't be helping Jessie any if you get yourself in solitary confinement. But then, he mused, if the Jennys were willing to put him in the same cell with a nine-year-old boy, then they must not think he was very threatening. Either that, or this kid was trouble. Maybe both.

Ash gave James a funny look. "R-Red? I g-guess it goes with my cap, but... _yeah_, Red. I... I think I might go with that, once I get out of here." He stared down at the floor, looking glum. "Not that I know when and if I'll ever get out of here, or if... if anyone's going to want me when I get back." He muttered something about a Raticate, then promptly burst into a flood of tears.

James found himself in a dilemma: he felt sorry for the poor kid, sure, despite what Ash had done to Jessie (under the circumstances of that time, James firmly believed she'd deserved it), but if he got too close, he could very well blow his cover and get some other base animal down HIS clothing. He remembered all too well an incident back in his Rocket-Dan training involving a swarm of termites having his back as a midnight snack. And base insects were easy to find in any human-built building that hadn't been cleaned in a while, which unfortunately was true of that particular cell.

"WANT you..." A horrible thought came to James' head as he remembered tragic stories Jessie had told him of her own childhood. "You mean... you're an orphan?"

"No!" Ash exclaimed, insulted and heartbroken at the same time, "It's just... my mom got so MAD at me right before... well, I don't want to talk about it! And my dad... my dad left a while back on a Pokemon journey, and... well, my friend Gary said..." Ash sniffled. "Gary said that my dad only left so he could get away from MEEEEEEEEE!" he ended with a shrill, heart-rending whine of sorrow, collapsing onto the cot and weeping piteously. "I didn't believe him then, but... what if he was RIGHT?"

As truly sincere as it was, that didn't change the fact that James was a total sucker for THAT one. Thoughts flashed into his mind: this was the same kid that sent the rodent down Jessie's shirt; the kid must be in here for using a base animal for battling, which was considered a sign of juvenile delinquency in Kanto; but if Ash had been then hero, it couldn't possibly be as bad as the kid made it out to be; COULD it be as bad as the kid made it out to be? – Obviously it was; that kid didn't _deserve_ a prison cell! – What kind of government would arrest some kid for saving innocent people from supposedly hideous, vicious Pokemorphs? Whose side were they on, anyway?

_Whose side am **I** on, anyway?_

And another thought – James knew that he himself had to escape from this prison sooner or later. If he stayed here, the Jennys would never release him. They might send him to some lab to be analyzed, or even dissected. They might decide he was too dangerous to allow to live. They might even default on their promise to aid Jessie – he was certain they would! And then there was Rocket-Dan, which would come down horribly on him and his team if word ever got out of James' betrayal. James vividly imagined having his mind wiped – or being incinerated in Rocket-Dan's garbage disposal.

James' mind was made up in that moment. Promise or no promise, he couldn't just rot in prison while Jessie was in danger. He'd promised two years ago that he would never, ever abandon her, EVER, not ever again. True, he'd been tempted several times – even earlier that day, in his showdown with Brock and Seymour – but... Jessie had no one else looking out for her. She _needed_ him. He'd only surrendered because she'd been captured, because if somebody had to take the blame for selling out Rocket-Dan's secrets, he wouldn't – _**couldn't**_ – let it be Jessie.

She _needed_ him. And _he_ needed _her_. She'd be infuriated at him for spilling Rocket-Dan's secrets, but she'd still know best about how to keep him from the higher-ups' wrath. Jessie would come through for him once she'd learned that he'd betrayed Rocket-Dan only to save _her_. He _knew_ it.

He didn't need to ask how he knew. He simply KNEW IT.

Just like he knew that if he was ever escaping at all from this cell, he had to take the kid with him. Never mind that Ash would be a witness to his escape if James left him behind; never mind that it would be much more expedient to (James shuddered at this thought) simply and remorselessly eliminate the witness. Jessie wouldn't be happy about a babysitting job, but maybe James could find Ash a place within Rocket-Dan that would at least be less painful than whatever the kid would go through in, say, Juvenile Hall. So before Ash knew it, James had wrapped his arms around him in comfort, whispering to him, "It's okay, kid. It's going to be okay."

Ash sniffled, surprised at this act of kindness and too distraught to question its source. "R-Really, Seymour?"

"Yes. Really." Forgetting the risk, James looked Ash clear in the eyes – no doubt about it, they WERE scars beneath them! "We're both going to escape from this place – together. I promise."

Ash smiled, squeezing James back with the trust that only a child can give. He didn't seem to notice the smell of James having wet himself; perhaps James' faint Roserade "sweet scent" had something to do with this. Maybe being a plant monster on the inside DID have its benefits.

Little did James realize that Ash had not been the only one to hear his words.

**Aww, looks like James has maternal instincts. *grins* Once again: Not. Slash. James is just a softie at times, that's all. The question is, how long can his better instincts keep him from turning Ash in to be genetically altered? (Actually, Ash might find being a gijinka to be awesomesauce. You never know.) And why the heck is James such a sucker for a sob story? We might never find out the answer to the second question, but the real question is this: who's listening in on their conversation, and are they friend or foe – and to whom? All this and more next chapter!**


	8. Rat Out

Chapter Eight: Rat Out

Something made a sudden shrill squeak within the jail cell, and James promptly squeaked back as he released Ash and dived under the covers like the inveterate coward he was. Ash, on the other hand, burst into a smile so wide, it was practically bio-luminescent. "Hey, look! A Raticate burrowed into our cell to rescue us!"

Yeah, James thought, or to eat us alive. Part of being a half-plant creature meant an irrational fear of most non-human beings, including herbivores. How Grass-type Pokemon managed to thrive on Pokearth was a testament to their power and strength that had always intrigued him, which was why that typing was his personal favorite. But right now, James didn't feel strong or powerful at all. A thought ran through his head that perhaps his teammates, Jessie and Meowthster, were completely right about him being unstable.

"Ooh, what's this?" Ash asked excitedly as the Raticate dropped a small plastic card at the youngster's feet. "Gary's trainer card? You're GARY'S Raticate?"

"Or Gary's devourer!" yelled James in a muffled voice from beneath the Mareep-wool blanket. "Stay away from it, kid! You'll get rabies! Call for help! NOW!"

"SHHHH!" Ash scolded. "It's all right! Gary must have sent her to help us escape! Do you want to call the JENNYS in, Seymour?"

James peeked out from beneath the blanket, grateful to see that the Raticate was, in fact, docile. "Oh, thank Arceus! Can you get it to chew through the bars?"

"Why bother? There's already a perfectly good tunnel here where they won't be able to see us, let alone catch us!" Ash darted down the tunnel; Gary's Raticate was thankfully large enough that the nine-year-old could make a reasonably comfortable escape.

The sixteen-year-old James, however, could not.

"I-I'll be right behind you," James lied, trying to think of how he could convince that Raticate to chew through the bars for him. "Um, Raticate just needs to widen that tunnel a bit!" Dagnabbit, he could hear the Jennys coming! James quickly thrust the electric blanket over the hole and sat on it, which in retrospect was not the best of moves: Raticate was still visible on the outside, Ash was invisible on the inside, and James now had his electric-blanket-covered fanny stuck firmly into that blasted hole, potentially cutting off airflow to the poor kid trying to escape.

James grimly wondered why the boss of Rocket-Dan had never taken the time to just take him out to the back of the Rocket HQ building and have him shot.

* * *

Janette the Jenny was not having the best day. After a thorough talking-to from her supervisor about unprofessional and detrimental behavior, she had been assigned to take dinner to the prisoners with not one, but TWO highly trained Growlithe "supervising" her. This seemed like the lunacy it was to Janette (Growlithe were, after all, dogs, and dogs and food had an undeniable magnetic attraction to each other), and she told her supervisor as much, but the single, curt reply she received was: "Those are your orders, and you follow them. If this organization was perfect, you'd have never been hired."

So now she was facing a prison cell from the free side of the bars, holding two lunch trays for a kid and a Pokemorph and instead facing a Raticate, a frazzled Pokemorph that seemed to be having trouble sitting down (perhaps that electric Mareep blanket was overcharged?), and no Ash Ketchum.

She asked the obvious question: "WHAT DID YOU DO TO THE KID, YOU FREAK OF NATURE?"

Not very diplomatic, but it certainly got the point across.

James, realizing that there was no way he was going to talk himself out of this one, decided, in his usual line of logic, to do so anyway. If the Jennys realized that he was hiding a tunnel out of the prison cell to freedom, he'd be Growlithe chow for certain. The Raticate in his prison cell was a dead giveaway; everyone knew they could chew through solid concrete, even the Jennys. (Yet another reason to keep so many Growlithe around.) And the very fact that Ash was no longer in the cell –

Wait a second. That was it!

Channeling every criminally insane supervillian he'd ever watched on television, James fixed a strong, purposely demented gaze on Janette, twisted his face to look unhinged, and said in a slow, gratingly distorted, and unnervingly creepy voice, "What, indeed? …Can't you see for yourself, my pretty?"

And pointed at the Raticate.

Both lunch trays clattered to the ground, scattering food everywhere. Both Growlithe, understanding the implications of James' innuendo, froze into position to lunge or attack if necessary, although one of them broke position long enough to gobble up a dumpling that had rolled right in front of it before resuming its position. Janette was terrified, but unfliching; she hadn't kept her job as a Jenny for so long without reason. She drew her taser and pointed it at the seeming horror in front of her, her eyes blazing like twin crystals of fire.

But what, she wondered, does one say to threaten a gijinka who claims to have turned a young boy into a Raticate?

"DON'T MOVE, OR I'LL SHOOT!" Simple, but effective. Then, into her Xtranciever: "Girls, I need some backup here! I don't know WHAT'S going on, but we've got a Raticate on the premises!"

James, noticing that Ash had left his hat behind when leaving, placed it atop the Raticate's head, still grinning like a lunatic. "Recognize him now?" He giggled loud, long, and shrill for maximum effect. For someone literally stuck in such an insane situation, he was really enjoying himself far to much.

Gary's Raticate gave James a very dirty look, then bit him.

"We've also got an insane Gijinka who claims that the Raticate is what's left of his cellmate!" Janette spoke into her Xtranciever. She then turned to James, who was wincing in pain from Raticate-bite and trying to use Synthesis while still looking psychotic. "If that Raticate tries to chew through the bars, I'll zap it with my Taser!"

James hoped she DID zap it, but he kept up his bluff. "Now, REALLY, my pretty. Would you really just up and zap a kid with buck teeth?"

"SHUT UP OR TASTE MY TASER! On your feet, hands up where I can see them, and no funny business! IS THAT CLEAR?"

On his feet? That was a problem, James realized; he'd been trying to wriggle his way out of that blasted tunnel entrance the whole time. "Sorry, my pretty, but my butt's asleep!" Which was actually the truth, come to think of it. "It's out of the office, but my flank can take a message! Are you selling cookies?"

Janette wasn't buying this bit of insanity. It was too suspicious. "SHUT UP, STAND UP, AND TALK SENSE OR..." She remembered the interrogation sequence. "...OR YOU'LL NEVER SEE YOUR PRECIOUS JESSIE AGAIN!"

James sobered up. Immediately.

"All right, all right!" he whined in his normal voice (that is, his normal whining voice, which was several octaves higher than his put-on "deep" voice that he normally used to hide the fact that puberty had been unnaturally cruel to him). "I'm TRYING to get up, I've been trying to get up since before you got here, but I seem to have somehow ingrained myself into this stupid tunnel that, for the record, I DIDN'T DIG, I DIDN'T ASK TO HAVE BEEN DUG, AND THAT I CAN'T EVEN FIT MY FLIPPING FANNY THROUGH WITHOUT GETTING ANCHORED TO THE FLOOR! Blame the kid, NOT ME!"

Two other Jennys had rushed in while James was giving this frank tirade, each one with their own Growlithe by their sides. The entering Growlithe, overjoyed to find the floor covered with edibles, promptly did what dogs do best when food is around, earning the ire of the first two Growlithe, who were still doing their job. Some minor growling and snapping ensued over whose job it was to watch the situation, causing one of the entering Jennys – Jasmine – to give a shrill whistle that snapped the puppy Pokemon back to attention.

"Please," James pleaded in a begging voice, attempting once again – and failing once again – to remove himself from the tunnel entrance. "I can't get out... and I think I have to go to the bathroom."

Gary's Raticate immediately started trying to dig James out, earning her a zap from Jasmine's tazer. "And why should we go near a gijinka that claims to have turned his cellmate into a Raticate? How do we know you won't turn US into Raticate as well?" Jasmine hissed.

James nervously looked down at the paralyzed Raticate and realized Jasmine was right. Except... "You know I was playing with you there! Just look at the whiskers! It's a female!"

Janette seemed to agree, but Jasmine didn't buy it. "So? You could have cut them short yourself."

James facepalmed. "I don't believe this. I just don't believe this."

"So if that ISN'T the kid, I'm guessing that Raticate helped him escape," Jasmine continued harshly, her eyes narrowing in sheer hatred. "And if the kid escaped, I'm guessing that what you're stuck in is the entrance to the exit tunnel he went through. Either that, or you've done something horrible to him. Well, either way, I didn't sign up for this job to let some green-leafed freak of nature wreak havoc on MY city. It's time to cull some weeds."

And as she was speaking, Jasmine pulled something that was definitely not her taser out of its holster and fired twice in James' direction.

**TO BE CONTINUED... (with or without James... the suspense... I'm so evil.)**


	9. Dead Ends, New Lives

Chapter Nine: Dead Ends, New Lives

James' first thought was that he was dead. The second thought was of pure relief – he would never, EVER have to explain his betrayal to his boss. Come to think of it, with any luck, he'd never see his boss, ever again. No more Team Rocket, no more lying, stealing, kidnapping, and threatening others' lives to survive. Bliss.

Unless he was about to get what he deserved for all that, in which case he'd better find the ghost of a water-type really, really quickly.

Except he wasn't dead, he realized, because his butt was still numb, and whoever heard of anything being numb in the afterlife? No, he realized as he opened his eyes that he hadn't remembered closing and peered out through the fingers he'd unconsciously plastered tightly over his face, he was in the middle of some Mew-forsaken forest at late night with crickets and Ledyba chirping in the background, the electric blanket still crackling beneath his booty, and some sort of big-eyed glowing levitating THING staring right into his –

Oops.

So much for this forest being Mew-forsaken; he was staring right at one. Assuming that the brightly-glowing, pink, jerboa-like creature with the high-pitched giggle and the highly curious expression was indeed a Mew and not a Ditto or Zorua deciding to have some fun with him.

Yep, James decided, he had been right the first time. He was DEFINITELY dead.

"Mew?" the creature asked playfully, waving its little stubby paws in James' face as if it was a window it was trying to wash. Wait, wouldn't a Mew wash things with its tongue? James wondered in the back of his mind, which forever and always was a law unto itself. James shuddered as Mew stuck its head forward at exactly the moment after he formed that thought, and before James knew what was happening, Mew quickly, daintily, innocently licked the tip of his nose.

James was so startled that he fell over backward, promptly learning his butt was no longer numb as a sharp jolt of pain alerted him that he had just knocked his right hip bone against a sharp rock.

This was no dream, all right. James had found Mew.

At least, Mew had found James. James realized that Mew must have teleported him out of the jail cell in the split second before Jasmine's bullets could have blown his head off.

But WHY?

Apparently, so it could laugh its fluffy butt off about his misfortunes, or so James believed. Right now, regardless of the fact that it had just saved his life, James wanted to bash its head in. But he was smart enough not to anger a legendary Pokemon – that, plus he couldn't get up. Not easily, anyway.

Mew apparently thought this was hilarious.

James wondered if the twerp kid was having anywhere near as surreal a moment as he was having now.

* * *

When Ash heard the sound of the two gunshots ricochet through the tunnel walls, he almost panicked completely, certain that both "Seymour" and Raticate had just met their deaths. The feeling of dread only intensified when he heard the baying of Growlithe behind him. The end of the tunnel couldn't possibly have come at a more welcome time than it did; thankfully Ash made it through and was able to somewhat block the entrance with a mostly-empty garbage can before the Growlithe could reach him.

By now, night had fallen; what a long day he'd had! It was hard to believe he'd started the day by running into a parked car and was finishing it with an escape from jail under apparent pain of death. But he didn't have time to think; he barely had time to run.

Ash took off running like a Rapidash through the forest surrounding Route One, terrified for his life. Not knowing in the least which way he was going, Ash inevitably stumbled into tall grass, startling a flock of roosting Pidgey into flying in his face. Falling backward, Ash was horrified to find himself face-to-face with a hungry Spinarak spider, venom dripping from its fangs. Ash was about to scream his last words when a low-flying Hoothoot grabbed the Spinarak in its talons, sparking a wild Pokemon battle to the finish. Ash, terribly shaken, got up quickly, thanked the Hoothoot under his breath (it was too busy fighting to understand or care), and continued fleeing for his life.

By some miracle, Ash broke free from the forest alive and was now running through much shorter vegetation. He was just about to praise Yeshua for his good fortune when things took a trip to the ironic.

A literal trip... over the edge of a very deep lake.

_Yeshua,_ _help_ _me!_ Ash begged, flailing wildly as he sunk into the depths. Attempts to yell for help backfired badly, as Ash was surrounded by nothing but water that quickly filled his mouth and lungs. A bright circle of light grew before his eyes just before total blackness hit...

* * *

In retrospect, Ash felt pretty stupid for not realizing that the "light at the end of the tunnel" was actually an evolving Poliwag swimming right towards him. But, then again, brains tended to work better when they had a lot of oxygen, which is kind of hard to come by when you're drowning.

Now Ash was gasping like a Magikarp on good solid earth, wondering why on Pokearth his deliverance had had to come in the form of a Poliwhirl that seemed to have extensive knowledge of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Not that Ash wasn't grateful, but seaweed breath most definitely had its ups and downs.

"Is this the part where you evolve into a prince?" Ash asked Poliwhirl sarcastically.

"Poli!" the Tadpole Pokemon objected in a voice that was most undoubtably feminine.

"Oops! Sorry, I was joking anyway. It's not like you were an Azurill."

"Whirl!" Poliwhirl affirmed, crossing her arms in satisfaction.

Ash was grateful to now have an ally, but fatigue from the day's events had finally set in, and the nine-year-old boy was desperately in need of a warm shelter. Shivering and shaking off water, Ash started to head towards what he thought were street lights, then stopped himself; if he entered human civilization, they'd surely turn him back in to the Jennys. Not very fair at all, considering he'd saved them from a vicious green gijinka!

"I'm dreaming," he thought. "Surely I must be dreaming all this." But he wasn't, as evidenced by the chills and shivers he was feeling in his wet clothes. Ash turned to Poliwhirl. "Um, I don't suppose you know of somewhere dry and warm where I can sleep tonight, do you?"

The creature nodded her entire body, making the swirl on her belly jiggle and seem to rotate. "Whirl!"

Poliwhirl lead Ash into a part of Pallet Forest that Ash had never seen before, passing into a concealed entrance through an ancient brick wall. In the darkness, Ash was unaware of the the strange and imposing ruins towering over him; the only room he was aware off was the simple stone hut, old but well-kept, that Poliwhirl led him into.

Had Poliwhirl visited the hut before as a Poliwag, Ash wondered? Not likely, as Poliwag much preferred swimming to walking because their stubby little legs were clumsy on land. Wherever Ash was, it must have been a place that every young Pokemon in Pallet was told of, a hidden grotto apart from humanity. If so, he could very well be the first human to ever enter it, at least this millineum.

But Ash was far too drained, both physically and emotionally, to care. Falling asleep on a pile of dried salveyo weed, Ash quickly escaped into the dream world, where all could be free.


	10. Prepare for Trouble

Chapter Ten: Prepare For Trouble

Hands shaking, James punched in his boss's nighttime number into his X-Tranceiver (apparently Mew had recovered that as well – why the heck would it do THAT, anyway?), knowing he'd only get the night secretary. But, then, Giovanni WAS known as an early riser – James had learned this when he and Jessie had gotten into a vicious argument after taking a before-sunrise obstacle course during which Jessie had purposely knocked him into half a dozen dirt pits as revenge for the sleeping bag incident – and he might actually be available to yell at him for jeopardizing the entire organization via his and Jessie's incompetence.

The call went through (despite the fact that the device appeared to be coated in a thick layer of Poliwag mucus), and James soon found himself facing an extremely staticky video feed of his boss Giovanni, who looked very much as if he had not yet received his coffee that morning. And James also knew from experience that Giovanni was not to be messed with at any time, but especially not before he had his morning coffee.

Ho boy. This didn't look good.

"Jameson Kojiro," Giovanni said curtly. "Did you just escape from prison, or did they let you off for good behavior?"

"I escaped from prison because they almost _knocked_ me off for _bad_ behavior!" James was trying as hard as he could not to panic. "But please, we don't have time! Jessie's been captured by Lance Blackthorn of the Elite Four, and I need – I mean WE need-"

"You need to tell me exactly WHY you surrendered to the police instead of fighting to save your partner, and exactly how your partner got captured on your watch in the FIRST PLACE."

Disproportionally large drops of sweat poured down James' face. Obviously Giovanni was well informed. "Well, you see... some school kid sent a hamster down her blouse..."

"I know THAT!" Giovanni snapped. "I _did_ watch the news, you know! What I WANT to know is why YOU didn't do ANYTHING to PREVENT it happening! You're SUPPOSED to be LEADING your little team – but instead, you stand by while your partner is incapacitated, then surrender yourself when she gets captured!"

"I did everything I could to rescue her!" James defended. "I made a deal with the Jennys – I told them every-"

Then James realized exactly what he'd just practically admitted to the BOSS, no less, and he gulped and zipped his lip tighter than a Cloyster's bottom.

But it was too late.

"You told them WHAT?!"

James knew, in that moment, that he was done for.

There was nothing left to do but confess the whole thing and hope his death was quick and painless. "I told them everything," James sobbed, almost dropping the X-tranciever. "I'm sorry, boss, but they had Jessie, and they could have killed her! I didn't want them to force Jessie to talk and get HER in trouble! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'll never do it again, just please, promise you won't-"

"You are absolutely correct, young man!" Giovanni hissed. "You will most certainly NEVER do that again!"

James' breath caught in his throat for one horrible moment, and his eyes went wide. Every piece of tech that came out of Rocket-Dan was fitted with a remote detonator in case the situation called for a swift, fiery self-destruction – say, if it landed into enemy hands, or if a would-be traitor got mouthy. As in this case entirely. "PLEASE, NO-!"

And James' X-tranciever made a short fizzling noise, sent out a few odd sparks that made James actually drop the device in shock (he hadn't been wearing his uniform's gloves in his pedestrian disguise, and the Jennys would have taken them anyway anyway while fingerprinting him). The still-smoking device sat harmlessly on the ground, not exploding into the deadly fireball that the boss had no doubt intended it to.

Whichever Jenny had doused it in Poliwag slime, James thought, surely deserved a promotion.

What the boss would have said after THAT ploy failed, James certainly hadn't planned on sticking around to hear. In fact, he was halfway up from the ground to start running like a terrified Deerling when the potentially deadly conversation was rudely but rather cutely interrupted by the wayward Mew sticking its head full in front of the camera in curiosity, then sneezing all over James' not-so-deadly X-transceiver.

Great. Germs from TWO different species of Pokemon. If Mew, who allegedly contained the DNA of ALL Pokemon, only counted as one.

"Kojiro!" Giovanni shrieked with an emotion that was totally different than his previous announcement. "What in blazes is THAT?"

James suddenly felt a lot less terrified than he had been the minute before, and a whole lot more smug.

It was truly amazing, he mused, how quickly a situation could change from bad to worse to a heck of a lot better. "I don't know," James deadpanned. "It could be a Mew... or it could be my ticket back into your good graces. Not that YOU'D care, since obviously you don't want me working for you anymore – otherwise, you wouldn't have just tried to murder me."

Mew glared at the periwinkle-haired human out of the corner of her eye. Of COURSE she was a Mew. What else did she look like, an Arceus? She then returned to studying the funny, buzzing, crackling device with the moving image of the bottom half of a human face on its screen.

Giovanni was blunt and to the point. "If you EVER want to draw breath again, you WILL send me that Mew, Kojiro. Or ELSE."

Mew snorted at the cranky screen. Bring her where again? She was right here. The screen was right here with her. It wasn't Uxie science, now, was it?

Oh, the face on the screen must be the projected spirit of whoever was talking. Mew remembered now that Uxie did that all the time. Show-off. Lake guardians thought they knew everything. Of course, Uxie actually did know everything, but that was no reason for him to be smug about it.

Trembling, James reached for the X-Transceiver and for Mew, then drew his hand back when Mew made a sudden, startled movement backward. "Um... yeah. Thing is... I haven't actually caught it yet." Then he added, "And you probably spooked it pretty badly when you tried to blow me to pieces with this thing."

"Just catch it, you (expletive deleted) fool!" And the X-Transceiver went blank.

Mew clearly did not approve of the cranky spirit in the strange, slimy, smoke-spewing whatever-it-was. Why was everyone trying to blow up this strange Roserade-human she'd rescued? Without any sign of even trying to ask permission, Mew scooped up James' X-Transceiver (much to his protests) and dumped it into a nearby river (James didn't like that either). Problem solved.

And then the Poke-ball closed around her, and she flailed wildly in shock and horror. What was going on? What foul sorcery was this?

Why was the strange creature she'd saved – twice, in her mind – trying to trap her?

* * *

James kept the tightest grip possible on the Ultra Ball he'd thrown at Mew. Vines shot from his Pokemorph fingers and knotted themselves tightly over the hollow sphere as he tried as hard as he could to contain his precious captive. "I'm sorry, Mew!" he managed to yell through the strain. "But it won't be much use that you saved me if my boss just kills me again!"

The Ultra Ball exploded, ripping the vines off James' fingers and liberating a very angry Mew. And angry mythical Pokemon tended to be a lot more dangerous than angry bosses, not to mention hungrier and more given to carnivorism.

James' fingernails were bleeding from this, but that was the least of his problems. "Please don't kill me!" James begged the Mew, falling forward onto his face. "Please! You don't KNOW what my boss will DO to me once he gets here! He won't hurt YOU; you're far too valuable for THAT; but he'll have ME sliced to ribbons for what I've done to him! PLEASE, Mew, I beg of you! Please let me capture you!"

Despite her fear, Mew hesistated. She saw real tears streaming down the poor creature's face – the creature, half human, half Pokemon – and while it asn't an easy decision to make without even knowing if she could truly TRUST the creature, somehow, she knew what she had to do.

She jumped into the Ultra Ball, sealing it shut around her with telekinesis, and hoping desperately that her strange new friend was telling the truth about how desperate he was.

If he wasn't, he was just going to have to pay for it.

* * *

"I'm sorry, Mew," James whispered as he collapsed the Poke-ball into thumbnail-size and added it to his Poke-belt, right next to Hankie the Koffing and Carnavalin the Carnivine. "But I need you to do one more thing for me."

It would require James to steal another X-Transceiver from some poor innocent soul to send the message, but with Jessie still at stake, James would have stolen anything, nailed down or otherwise. James refused to relinquish Mew to the boss until Jessie was safe and sound, which meant that with the power of a mythical Pokemon by James' side, Lance Blackthorn was about to face the full wrath of a Roserade scorned.

And maybe even lose a certain kidnapped hamster.


	11. Make It Double?

Chapter Eleven: Make It Double?

"Hey, who the heck ARE you?"

Ash woke up suddenly from a long, involved dream concerning his rise to Pokemon masterhood, a dream that had seemed to span over fifteen years of being ten years old. Come to think of it, today was his birthday, wasn't it? Or was that just part of the dream? He couldn't have forgotten his own birthday, could he? With everything that had gone on the previous day, it wouldn't have been surprising at all if he had...

...and then Ash realized that he was lying in a squashed pile of Salveyo Weed and staring into the eyes of a drop-dead gorgeous eleven-year-old brunette in a black dress who apparently had neither expected nor wanted him to be there.

And she was holding his hat, his prize baseball cap which he honestly couldn't remember when he'd lost in the first place. The Poliwhirl from last night was standing behind the girl, giving her a disapproving look that seemed to indicate its belief that Ash's hat belonged on Ash's head and nowhere else whatsoever. Which was odd, because Ash was pretty sure that Poliwhirl had never actually seen him in it.

"Oh, you're that Ash kid that was in all the papers," the gorgeous girl concluded. "NICE. Did you ever realize that the president of Kanto issued an executive order last night that you were to be released immediately, exonerated of all charges, and given your own starter at Oak's lab? Because I should think that breaking out of prison just before it spontaneously got blown to smithereens might have made you a teeny bit suspicious in the eyes of whatever Jennys survived both the explosion and the mass layoffs from utter incompetence."

Ash Ketchum, being Ash Ketchum, couldn't quite take this all in at once. He hadn't heard anything about any explosion at Viridian's police station. Heck, he didn't even know that "exonerated of all charges" wasn't another term for a Pikachu discharging electricity, which might well have explained the explosion, except for the fact that police buildings really, really ought to have been built a heck of a lot stronger than that. (Then again, the building had hardly been Raticate-proofed, which was an obvious flaw; the architect had obviously cut corners and broken several Kantoan building codes which might not have even been in effect at the time the police station had been built.)

But the one thing that stood out in Ash's mind was the girl's words: "...given your own starter at Oak's lab."

HIS starter. Ash Ketchum's starter. His very first Pokemon.

_I'm going to really be a Pokemon trainer after all!_

"You mean it?" Ash asked excitedly, leaping to his feet and all but dancing for joy. "A starter Pokemon from Oak's lab? Really?"

The girl rolled her eyes, unintentionally giving Poliwhirl the opportunity to snatch Ash's hat straight out of her hand and quickly return it to its original owner, who received it gratefully. "YES, Ash, assuming they don't arrest you for whatever presumed role they stick on you for the place blowing to a bloody – hey, where ARE you going?"

By that time, Ash was already out of earshot, Poliwhirl following close behind him out of some sort of loyalty. Not that he would have heard the girl, anyway: Ash was literally whooping with joy.

The girl snorted, rubbing her hand where Poliwhirl had left a blob of damp mucus from taking the hat. "Some trainer HE'S going to make, running around and roaring like a wild Raikou. It'll be at least ten minutes before he finds his way out of the Pokemopolis ruins, at least another thirty minutes before he finds his way through Pallet Forest and into town – and that's a highly conservative estimate, mind you – and THEN he'll have to worm his way past all manner of Jennys and paparazzi before he actually sets his smelly sneakers onto the old geezer's from porch, let alone the lab." She smiled smugly to herself. "Which gives me plenty of time to get there first."

She tossed out a Poke Ball. "Abby! Use Teleport!"

For a brief moment, the glowing outline of a female Abra emerging from the Poke Ball was seen in the hut; then a slightly different aura of light enveloped both the girl and her Abra, teleporting them away from the squashed and soggy pile of Salveyo weed that Ash had been sleeping on.

* * *

When Ash emerged from the stone hut, he found himself in the middle of a bunch of ancient ruins that he had never seen before. "Where the heck am I?" he wondered to himself. "How am I supposed to get back to Pallet Town from here?"

To Ash's eyes, every hut looked the same. Even if they hadn't, he wouldn't have known what sort of difference indicated the correct way out, even if his vision had been what it was before the Spearow attack several years before that had damaged his eyesight in the first place. So Ash decided to try thinking like a Pokemon.

_Woobat have poor vision, so they determine their surroundings based on smell. Maybe I can catch a whiff of the way outta here..._

Ash sniffed the air, searching for any smell that indicated recent human habitation. He wrinkled his nose at a sudden aroma that was certainly anything but ancient: spray paint. He rushed in the direction of the scent, tripping over several half-buried rocks and eroded brick foundations along the way. To his surprise, Poliwhirl was right behind him, helping him up with her slimy toady hands, coated in several layers of dried mucus that gave them a semblance of being gloved (Ash certainly wished they had been, but now was not the time to complain about it).

"Thanks, Poliwhirl." Ash paused. "Does this mean we're friends now?"

"Poli!" Poliwhirl agreed.

"Can I be your trainer, perhaps?"

Poliwhirl seemed to consider this a moment, but looked indecisive.

"That's okay," Ash encouraged her. "Take your time. I don't have any Poke Balls, anyway." He'd once had half of one that he and Gary had fought over back when they were friends, but it was still in his backpack at home where he'd left it once Lance and the Jennys had forcibly removed him from his own house (without so much as a search warrant, mind you). A hint of doubt entered Ash's mind; what if the strange girl had been lying about the President ordering him to get a starter Pokemon and start out on a journey? What if he was walking into a trap?

_But why the heck would she lie to me, anyway?_

Soon Ash reached the source of the smell of aerosol: an ancient stone wall spray-painted in lime green letters that read: "JAMES... IS... A..." (The last word was an obscene slur that Ash wasn't even sure was spelled correctly. Sadly, he had seen it before, scratched into the inside wall of a toilet stall in the boy's bathroom at school and addressed in regard to Ash himself. Despite this, Ash still didn't know what it meant, and when he asked a teacher about it, she told him to consider himself fortunate that he still didn't. Highly surprisingly, he accepted this completely.)

"Poliwhirl!" Ash shouted. "Use Water Gun on that wall!"

While Ash had intended to simply wash the paint off, Poliwhirl went all out and blasted the wall to smithereens, revealing that the duo were far closer to Pallet Town than the mysterious brunette had assumed they'd wind up.

And the sudden rush of water and rock had definitely turned a few heads towards the disturbance.

"Um, hi, guys!" Ash said, stepping out from behind his Pokemon friend and waving as if he hadn't been a wanted criminal less than eighteen hours before. "Anyone miss me? I'm back!"


End file.
